Operations Engineer & Project Associate

Welcome to a leading global firm dedicated to connecting top-tier talent with the world's most innovative brands. Our mission is to transform how businesses operate by fostering creativity, design, and marketing excellence, and we are constantly seeking to optimize our internal processes to better serve our talent and clients.

This is an exceptional opportunity to join our internal team, where you will be instrumental in shaping the operational backbone of our organization. You won't just be supporting; you'll be actively building, optimizing, and leading initiatives that directly enhance our efficiency and strategic capabilities across sales, recruiting, and operations. Imagine being at the forefront of implementing cutting-edge AI and automation solutions, driving tangible change, and enabling our leadership and teams to achieve unprecedented levels of success. You will be a strategic delivery partner, creating operational bandwidth for leadership and our staffing teams by auditing workflows, engineering smart automations, and leading critical projects from conception to completion.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Leadership & Execution: Own and manage key business initiatives from start to finish. Coordinate cross-functional resources, establish clear timelines, and ensure project delivery.
• Workflow Automation & AI Development: Identify operational bottlenecks across sales, recruiting, and operations. Design, build, and deploy automated workflows and customized AI agents to eliminate manual tasks and free up staff bandwidth.
• Data Analysis & Experimentation: Run qualitative and quantitative deep dives into data to assess the business impact of new initiatives. Set up frameworks to test new processes, analyze feedback/results, and pragmatically recommend course corrections.
• Influence & Change Management: Embed yourself within different internal teams to drive the adoption of new systems. Use strong communication and interpersonal skills to manage the human side of behavioral and operational change.
• Leadership Support: Keep leadership organized, anticipate project roadblocks, and independently drive solutions forward without needing extensive guidance or course-correcting.

Who We're Looking For

• Systems Thinking & Engineering Mindset: You naturally view businesses as a series of interconnected systems. You excel at breaking down complex, messy problems into structured, repeatable processes.
• Pragmatic & Analytical: Highly analytical with a business-first lens. You don't just look at data for the sake of it; you extract actionable insights that drive business impact.
• Resourceful & Autonomous: A curious, tech-forward self-starter who figures things out. When faced with an unfamiliar tool or a vague problem, you proactively research, test, and build a solution.
• High Emotional Intelligence (EQ): While you may not be managing direct reports, you possess the strong leadership and influencing skills needed to wrangle different teams, build trust, and manage friction during operational shifts.
• Obsessively Organized: Methodical and detail-oriented. You bring order to chaos and naturally keep projects moving forward.

Qualifications & Requirements

Must-Have:

• Strong Academic Achievement: A stellar academic track record demonstrating high cognitive ability, logical reasoning, and intellectual curiosity (open to backgrounds in Business Analysis, Engineering, Computer Science, Economics, or similar).
• Demonstrated Leadership: Proven experience leading initiatives from start to finish-whether managing professional projects, spearheading university/extracurricular activities, or organizing out-of-work initiatives. We value the ability to drive projects and influence outcomes over traditional team-management experience.
• Hands-on AI & Automation Literacy: Proven capability in working with modern AI platforms, systems, and APIs. You must be able to demonstrate how you have built your own AI agents, prompts, or automated workflows (e.g., using Make.com, Zapier, LLMs, or low-code environments) to solve real problems.
• Communication, Influencing & Change Management: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. You must be able to clearly articulate complex ideas, build rapport across different teams, and possess the soft skills required to influence behavior and drive the adoption of new ways of working.

Nice-to-Have (But Not Required):

• Familiarity with the staffing, recruitment, or professional services industry.
• Experience in a Business Analyst, Operations Coordinator, or technical project management role.

What You'll Experience

This is a high-visibility, high-impact role designed for an ambitious early-career professional. You will work directly alongside executive leadership, gain a comprehensive understanding of how a staffing business scales, and have the autonomy to build systems that directly impact our organization's growth.

About Aquent Talent:

Aquent Talent connects the best talent in marketing, creative, and design with the world's biggest brands.

Our eligible talent get access to amazing benefits like subsidized health, vision, and dental plans, paid sick leave, and retirement plans with a match. We also offer free online training through Aquent Gymnasium. More information on our awesome benefits!

Aquent is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics. We're about creating an inclusive environment-one where different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are valued, and everyone can contribute, grow their careers, and thrive.