About this Head/Senior Manager, Operations, Strategy & AI role at Big Viking Games
About Big Viking Games
Big Viking Games is a Canadian gaming company focused on building, operating, and growing long-standing online game communities. Our games have entertained players for years, supported by loyal audiences, live operations, evolving content systems, product innovation, and deep player-driven economies.
Our flagship titles, YoWorld and FishWorld, have served millions of players over their lifetime. These are enduring live-service virtual worlds with rich in-game economies, virtual goods, social interaction, and long-term player engagement at their core.
We are entering a new phase of modernization and growth, with a focus on stronger operating discipline, better internal systems, practical AI adoption, cleaner workflows, improved reporting, and scalable processes that help our teams perform at a higher level.
About the Role
Big Viking Games is hiring an Operations Manager to help build and run the operational backbone of the company.
This is a hands-on, high-ownership role for someone who can improve how the company operates day to day while also helping build better systems for the future. You will work across business operations, CRM administration, internal tools, workflow automation, vendor management, reporting, onboarding, documentation, and light technology coordination.
This is not a traditional office administration role and it is not a pure IT role. The right person is an operator and systems builder. You should be comfortable identifying broken processes, creating structure, implementing tools, improving follow-through, and using AI to reduce manual work across the business.
You will report to the COO and work closely with leadership across product, engineering, finance, HR, recruiting, live operations, customer support, and marketing.
This is a hybrid role based in Toronto, with an expectation of working in office three days per week.
Requirements
Business Operations
- Own and improve internal operating processes across the company.
- Help create structure, visibility, and accountability around cross-functional work.
- Support leadership with operational reporting, meeting follow-ups, task tracking, and execution rhythms.
- Build and maintain SOPs, runbooks, workflows, and internal knowledge bases.
- Identify operational bottlenecks and create practical solutions that improve speed, clarity, and consistency.
- Coordinate cross-functional initiatives across leadership, product, engineering, HR, finance, support, and live operations.
- Support department managers and work with SLT across the company in planning, internal communications, leadership meeting preparation, and follow-through on key decisions.
- Help ensure important commitments, deadlines, and action items do not get dropped.
Business Systems, Tech Stack, Tool Administration
- Administer and improve key business systems, including CRMs, HRIS, CSM, JIRA, AI automations, project management, support, collaboration, documentation, and reporting tools.
- Support software/tech stack hygiene, process design, fields, workflows, dashboards, pipeline visibility, and user adoption.
- Help teams use tools properly so reporting is accurate and workflows are reliable.
- Manage user access, permissions, licenses, configuration, and tool usage across systems such as Google Workspace, Slack, Jira, Zendesk, CRM platforms, Notion, Airtable, Asana, or similar tools.
- Identify underused, redundant, or poorly configured tools and recommend improvements.
- Partner with teams to improve how work flows through systems, from intake to execution to reporting.
- Create lightweight dashboards, reports, and operational views that help leaders understand what is happening across the business.
- Improve data quality, process compliance, and system reliability across internal tools.
AI, Automation, and Workflow Improvement
- Use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or similar platforms to improve daily operations, documentation, reporting, research, and internal workflows.
- Identify opportunities to automate repetitive work across operations, HR, recruiting, finance, support, product, and leadership workflows.
- Build or coordinate lightweight automations using tools such as Zapier, Make, Google Apps Script, Airtable, Notion, or similar platforms.
- Create AI-assisted workflows for meeting summaries, action tracking, SOP creation, ticket triage, CRM updates, reporting, and internal communications.
- Help teams adopt practical AI workflows that improve productivity without creating unnecessary complexity.
- Maintain clear documentation for automated workflows, system processes, and recurring operating tasks.
- Continuously look for ways to reduce manual work, improve speed, and increase operational leverage.
Vendor, Software, and Cost Management
- Manage relationships with external vendors, service providers, and software partners.
- Track renewals, contracts, costs, licenses, seat allocation, and vendor performance.
- Optimize software spend by identifying unused seats, duplicate tools, or inefficient subscriptions.
- Coordinate vendor transitions, onboarding, offboarding, procurement, and service reviews.
- Support leadership with vendor comparisons, cost analysis, and recommendations.
- Ensure business tools are being used effectively and that the company is getting value from its software stack.
Onboarding, Offboarding, and Internal Support
Support employee onboarding and offboarding across systems, tools, equipment, access, and documentation.
Coordinate access setup, permission changes, license assignment, and account removal.
Maintain hardware and device inventory, procurement records, and equipment lifecycle processes.
Provide first-level internal support for common business systems, software access, account issues, and workflow questions.
Coordinate light IT needs such as device setup, basic troubleshooting, office connectivity, and vendor escalation.
Partner with external specialists when deeper technical support is required.
Help keep the Toronto office operational, organized, and ready for employees, candidates, vendors, and visitors.
What You Bring
- 4+ years of experience in operations, business operations, revenue operations, systems administration, workplace operations, project coordination, or a similar role.
- Experience working in a technology, gaming, SaaS, digital product, startup, or fast-moving business environment.
- Strong hands-on experience administering business systems such as CRM, Google Workspace, Slack, Jira, Zendesk, Airtable, Notion, Asana, or similar tools.
- Experience improving workflows, building SOPs, managing projects, and creating operational structure.
- Strong comfort with AI tools and a practical understanding of how they can improve productivity, documentation, reporting, and execution.
- Experience with CRM hygiene, process design, dashboarding, reporting, user adoption, or workflow configuration.
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities without losing follow-through.
- Clear communication skills with both technical and non-technical teams.
- Strong judgment, discretion, and comfort working with company-sensitive information.
- A hands-on ownership mindset and willingness to solve problems directly.
- Ability to work independently, identify gaps, and create structure without waiting for detailed instructions.
- Comfort with light technology coordination, access management, software setup, and vendor escalation.
- Ability to work from our Toronto office three days per week.
Nice to Have
- Experience in gaming, live-service products, SaaS, digital products, or founder-led companies.
- Experience with Salesforce, HubSpot, Monday.com, Airtable, Notion, Zendesk, Jira, Google Workspace, Slack, or similar platforms.
- Experience building automations using Zapier, Make, Google Apps Script, Airtable automations, or similar tools.
- Experience with reporting, dashboards, CRM operations, revenue operations, or business intelligence tools.
- Experience supporting HR, recruiting, finance, customer support, product, or live operations teams.
- Experience managing vendor transitions or bringing outsourced services in-house.
- Experience with hardware inventory, device coordination, onboarding, offboarding, and basic office technology support.
- Familiarity with security basics, access controls, password managers, SaaS permissions, and data hygiene.
- Experience working with remote, hybrid, or distributed teams.
Ideal Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is an operator who builds systems. They see where work gets stuck, where information is missing, where tools are not being used properly, and where manual processes should be replaced with better workflows.
They are not looking for a narrowly defined admin role. They want broad ownership, exposure to leadership, and the ability to make the company run better. They can move between CRM cleanup, vendor follow-up, AI workflow design, onboarding support, reporting, documentation, and cross-functional coordination without losing quality or urgency.
They are practical, organized, direct, and resourceful. They understand that operations is not just support. It is the system that helps the company execute.
Benefits
Compensation
The expected base salary range for this role is CAD $105,000 to $125,000, depending on experience, systems capability, AI workflow experience, and overall fit.
Candidates with strong CRM administration, business systems ownership, automation, and cross-functional operations experience will be considered at the higher end of the range.
Benefits
- Group Retirement Savings Plan matching and participation.
- Comprehensive benefits package, including health, dental, and vision coverage.
- Health and Wellness spending account.
- Generous time off policies.
- Opportunity to help build the operating system of a live-service gaming company.
- Exposure to leadership, business operations, systems modernization, CRM, AI workflows, and cross-functional execution.
- A high-impact role with meaningful ownership over how the company operates day to day.
Accessibility and Accommodation
Big Viking Games is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible environment for all candidates. We welcome applications from individuals of all abilities and will provide accommodations throughout the hiring process as needed.
If you require accommodation during the hiring process, please contact hr@bigvikinggames.com so we can work with you to support your needs.