US Operations Coordinator - Direct Injection

About Portless Portless is a cross-border fulfillment company that ships directly from China to end customers with a domestic-like delivery experience. Direct Injection is our owned-carrier lane: we book our own air capacity, file our own customs entries under our own HTS classifications, and control every shipment through airport recovery, ground handling, and induction into last-mile delivery networks — all running on Portless systems. The Role Direct Injection is scaling, and today the lane is run entirely by our operations team in China. Once freight is wheels-down in the US, though, everything moves on US time: customs clearance, airport recovery, ground handling, and last-mile induction, across several vendors who need fast, clear answers. You will be our first dedicated US-side operations hire, owning that communication layer end to end. This is a junior role with unusual exposure. You'll touch every step of the US leg of an international parcel network, work directly with operations leadership, and help write the playbooks for a lane that's growing quickly. What You'll Do Track inbound flights and pre-alerts daily; confirm freight recovery timing and ULD breakdown with airport ground handling agents after arrival Coordinate with our US customs broker: ensure entry documentation (manifests, commercial invoices, HTS data) is complete and filed on time, monitor clearance status, and chase holds and exams through to release Manage the handoff to our US ground handler — recovery from the airport, sortation, and linehaul to last-mile induction points Confirm inductions with last-mile carriers, reconcile manifests against scans, and flag short-shipped or missing freight immediately Own exception management on the US leg: flight delays and rollovers, customs holds, damaged or missing pieces, mis-sorts — investigate, communicate, and drive to resolution Run a structured daily handover with our China-based operations team so nothing falls between China end-of-day and US morning Keep shipment milestones current in our systems and contribute to SLA and vendor performance reporting Turn recurring issues into documentation: customs-hold playbooks, recovery escalation paths, vendor contact trees What We're Looking For 1–3 years in airfreight operations, freight forwarding (import/gateway desk), customs brokerage, or airline/ground-handler cargo operations — strong recent graduates with relevant internships considered Working knowledge of air cargo fundamentals: MAWB/HAWB, ULDs, freight recovery, and ideally the US customs entry flow (entry types, holds, exams) Exceptional written communication — most of this job is fast, precise, unambiguous emails and messages to vendors and teammates across time zones Highly organized: comfortable tracking many shipments across multiple parties at once without dropping threads Comfortable in spreadsheets and quick to learn internal systems and dashboards Self-directed and calm under time pressure — you'll be the first and only US ops person on this lane to start Genuine flexibility on hours: freight lands early mornings and on weekends, and our China team's day begins during the US evening; this role includes early-morning coverage and an on-call rotation Nice to Have Mandarin proficiency (daily collaboration with our China operations team) Experience with ECCF/CFS environments and informal customs entries (e.g., Type 11) Familiarity with parcel induction into USPS or regional last-mile carriers Based near a major air gateway (e.g., LAX, ORD, JFK) What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days Every inbound flight has a US-side owner: tracked, cleared, recovered, and inducted, with proactive status communication — vendors and the China team never have to ask twice Customs holds and airport exceptions resolve measurably faster because someone on US hours is pushing them The China–US daily handover is a running ritual with a consistent format The first playbooks (customs-hold response, recovery escalation) are documented and in use