Business Operations Associate

Business Operations Associate — Path to Chief of Staff

Missoula, MT | Full-time | $60,000–$70,000 + a written promotion path

StepRanger builds electric micro-trucks and utility vehicles for ranches, farms, job sites, and land management. We built the first units in 2023, sold regionally in Montana and California, opened nationwide online sales in May 2025, and have shipped to 50 states and Canada since. The company is headquartered in California with a second location here in Missoula, and we're growing fast.

This role works directly with our Missoula-based co-founder, who runs the company day to day. We're hiring the person who will become his right hand — and, as you earn it, our Chief of Staff. The title, the pay band for it, and the milestones that get you there go in your offer letter.

The job in one paragraph

Customer support is the anchor. You'll own our customer window — email and phone — within your first six weeks: product questions, order and shipping status, technical troubleshooting on the machines. We'll train you; it's also how you'll learn the business, the same way the founder did. Around that window, you'll do everything a fast-growing company needs: run the founder's calendar and follow-up list, meet customers at our by-appointment showroom, help at the warehouse, run errands, chase vendors, fix what's broken. As you master each piece, you'll document it, own it outright, and take on bigger ones — until you're running real initiatives with a budget. No two days look the same. The customer window is fixed, and it comes first.

Schedule and location

Full-time, Monday through Friday. The customer window — roughly 9am to 2pm Mountain — is fixed on purpose: it covers business hours on both coasts, which is when our customers call. The window work is largely from home; the rest of the job is in person — our Missoula warehouse and by-appointment showroom, customer visits, errands, and time working directly with the founder. You need to be local, with a reliable vehicle.

Your first 18 months

• Weeks 1–6: learn the product line cold; answer customer email with review, then run the window solo — phone and email.

• Months 2–6: the founder's day-to-day routes through you — calendar, follow-ups, showroom, errands, warehouse. You take over recurring operations one at a time (freight claims, warranty parts, vendor threads) and write each one down as a system.

• Months 6–12: you close loose ends on your own judgment and run your first named project end to end.

• Months 12–18: you own initiatives with budgets, hand the customer window to a hire you help make, and step into the Chief of Staff title you've been working toward.

What we need

• Exceptionally sharp and business-minded. You see how decisions connect to money, customers, and time.

• An exceptional communicator, written and spoken. You'll be writing to customers who spent $3,000 on a machine, and the reply has to sound like a person who knows what they're talking about.

• Proactive, with proof. Tell us about something you built or fixed that nobody asked you to.

• No task beneath you. Some days you'll shape how we enter a new market. Some days you'll sign for a pallet. Both are the job, permanently.

• Curious about how mechanical things work. You'll troubleshoot electric drivetrains and batteries over the phone. You don't need the experience; you need to want to understand it.

• Eager to work hard and learn fast. The founder will teach you the business. That's the job.

• Local to Missoula (or moving here), reliable vehicle, valid driver's license, able to move gear around a warehouse.

What you get

• $60,000–$70,000 depending on experience

• A written path to Chief of Staff — title, pay band, and the milestones that get you there, in your offer letter

• A seat next to a founder at a company that ships a physical product people love

• Monthly phone stipend; consistent weekday schedule, part of it from home

How to apply

Email Sign in to view email with your resume and a note (a page is plenty) covering:

1. A customer or client you turned around — including what you actually said to them
2. Something you built, fixed, or took over that nobody asked you to — and what happened
3. Why Missoula, and why a small company instead of a big one

Write the note yourself. It's the first part of the interview, and it's the part we read first. Applying through LinkedIn without the email note will not be reviewed.

StepRanger is an equal opportunity employer.