Lead Store Associate  

Type of Work: Full-Time  
Shift Availability: The candidate must have open availability on weekdays, evenings, weekends, and holidays.
Starting Hourly Pay Rate: $17.50 - $19.25/hr + tips
Location: 2151 Elida Rd, Lima, OH 45805

About the Role:

As a Lead Store Associate, you'll be at the forefront of delivering exceptional experiences to our customers while guiding and inspiring your team. As a key player in our retail operations, you'll serve as a brand ambassador, drive performance, and help shape a welcoming, compliant, and high-performing retail store environment. 

What You’ll Do:

Customer Experience & People

• Lead by example to create a warm, welcoming environment where every guest feels valued, and coach your team to deliver exceptional service with every interaction.

• Empower associates to build meaningful customer relationships through personalized product recommendations and expert guidance.

• Drive consultative selling on the floor by encouraging open-ended questions, active listening, and thoughtful product education.

• Foster a culture of loyalty by guiding the team to enroll guests in our rewards program and capture customer insights that enhance future experiences.

• Support your team in resolving customer concerns with empathy and professionalism, ensuring every challenge becomes an opportunity to build trust.

• Promote a respectful, inclusive, and collaborative workplace—where positivity and teamwork fuel great customer experiences and smooth operations at checkout.

Operational Excellence & Processes

• Execute opening and closing duties, including daily huddles and cash reconciliation.

• Verify customer IDs and maintain accurate POS profiles.

• Ensure inventory integrity through precise transaction processing and order fulfillment.

• Lead inventory counts and participate in overnight audits.

• Maintain a clean, organized, and guest-ready store environment.

• Uphold compliance with SOPs, safety protocols, and state regulations.

Sales & Performance

• Achieve daily KPI goals through consultative selling and upselling strategies.

• Reinforce customer purchase decisions and highlight complementary products.

• Stay informed on promotions and product updates to deliver a seamless shopping experience.

Leadership & Team Development

• Guide and support store associates in daily operations.

• Lead by example in customer service and operational excellence.

• Train new hires and conduct ongoing training sessions.

• Provide real-time coaching and feedback to drive team performance.

• Delegate tasks effectively and act as the go-to leader in the absence of store management.

• Support conflict resolution and promote a positive workplace culture.

• Adapt quickly in a fast-paced environment and take on additional duties as needed.

What You’ll Bring:

• Must be 21 years of age or older.

• High School Diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate.

• A minimum of 1 year of experience in a customer-facing or sales environment.

• A minimum of 1 year of experience using point-of-sale (POS) systems and cash handling.

• A minimum of 6 months of leadership experience in a retail environment.

• Minimum of 6 months of hands-on experience in retail store operations, including but not limited to executing opening and closing procedures, and reconciling cash drawers.

• Curaleaf Team Members need a minimum of 6 months of experience as a Store Associate demonstrating consistent performance.

• Strong leadership and team-building skills with the ability to coach and motivate others.

• Familiarity with retail standard operating procedures (SOPs), safety protocols, and loss prevention practices

• High level of attention to detail, especially in cash handling and inventory management.

• Excellent customer service and interpersonal communication skills.

• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

• Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a high-volume, compliance-driven setting.

• Availability to work a flexible schedule, including evenings, weekends, holidays, and occasional overnights.

• Multi-tasking with the ability to quickly pivot to other tasks

• Comfortable using technology and learning new tools to support operations and customer interactions.

• Strong time management and organizational skills.

• Strong de-escalation skills and the ability to redirect upset customers to result in a positive guest experience.

• Basic proficiency in mathematics and computer applications.

• The ability to maintain a solution-driven mindset when dealing with upset customers.

• Strong conflict resolution skills and the ability to handle high-stress situations.

• Ability to support store leadership by taking initiative and a proactive approach

• Ability to work across all stations within the store, based on business needs.

Even Better If You Have:

• Previous knowledge of inventory management, systematic restocking of merchandise, fulfillment of online and in-store orders, and conducting daily inventory counts and comprehensive inventory audits to maintain stock accuracy and compliance.

• Background in a sales role with a focus on tracking KPIs and meeting sales targets.

• Previous experience within a regulated retail setting.

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to stand for extended periods, regularly stand, walk, talk, or hear, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl, use hands and fingers to feel, reach with hands and arms, and lift up to 25 pounds. The employee is occasionally required to climb, balance, and lift up to 50 pounds.  This position requires close vision (clear vision at 20 inches or less).

Work Environment:

This position has allergen warnings, including potential exposure to dust, pollen, and plant pathogens, and requires the ability to work in confined spaces, possess high stress tolerance, adaptability, and flexibility to work in an ever-changing environment.

We're building an AI copilot for web testing automation. It enables manual and automation QA engineers to turn their manual testing flows into production-ready automated E2E testing scripts, saving hours of manual work and coding. We are a small team with zero bureaucracy, focusing on real users. We optimize for shipping value - not hype.

About the role:

You'll own the top of the funnel: outbound, qualification, and getting leads to sit down for a conversation. Demos, onboarding, and retention are staying with the founder for now.

Phase one: Get individual Automation QAs to try the product, aiming for fast adoption and no procurement. Once we hit 20+ weekly users, we’ll move on to phase two, where we’ll shift the focus to B2B – qualified meetings with QA Leads and Engineering Managers.

Your focus in the first three months:

• Build targeted lists: Automation QAs at companies with web products and Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium in their stack.
• Run outbound sequences (LinkedIn is the baseline, but you decide the channels). A/B test weekly.
• Design qualification gates (forms and scoring) to filter leads before the founder calls.
• Reach 20+ weekly active users after month one – ICP-qualified and giving direct feedback to engineering.
• Document what works into a repeatable playbook.

Growth path:

This role expands as your strategies deliver results. Once the user pipeline works, you can take over demos and run B2B sales end to end. From there, the natural next step is Growth Lead (funnel optimization and scaling the playbook) or Account Executive (owning deal execution).

Why to join:

• You'll be building a strategy that scales the product, not filling a quota. What you create from scratch becomes the foundation.
• Your outreach turns into users who talk directly to engineering, and their feedback ships as features within days.
• AI for developer tools is a market with real pull, and QA automation is one of its sharpest pain points.
• We’re backed by JetBrains – financially secure with no reliance on external VC funding.

Who we're looking for:

You should have a high level of agency and be quant-minded – you live in funnel metrics, run experiments, and are comfortable saying "no" to leads that are a bad fit. 

The ideal candidate will:

• Have done 0-to-1 outbound for an early-stage devtool, QA tool, infrastructure product, or similar.
• Have proven cold outbound results, instead of being dependent on warm inbound.
• Be able to talk credibly about flaky tests, CI pain, and Playwright vs. Cypress. You don't need to be an engineer, but you do need domain empathy.
• Possess strong written communication skills, with the ability to craft short, sharp messages that get replies.

Nice to have:

• A QA or SDET background – you've felt the pain yourself before moving to sales or BD.
• Exposure to security/compliance objections – enough to pre-empt and route.
• Content skills – your LinkedIn posts get engagement, not just your DMs.
• Experience as one of the first 10 employees at a startup.

#LI-REMOTE 
#LI-KT1