Head of Operations

Location: Bay Area preferred, flexible for the right candidate

About the role

As our first Head of Operations, you'll be the key to enabling our team to do its best work. You’ll own the operational backbone of our company, managing everything from lab logistics and vendor relations to HR processes.

Your strategic support will allow our scientists and engineers to focus on what matters most: reinventing how the world accesses critical metals.

Responsibilities

• Drive all day-to-day operations, including equipment, supplies, safety, and scheduling, ensuring our team has everything they need to innovate.
• Oversee purchasing, receipts, and vendor relationships to optimize our budget and secure the best resources.
• Act as the hub for all hiring, onboarding, and HR processes, helping us build a world-class team.
• Design, implement, and improve the internal systems that keep us accountable and efficient as we grow.
• Act as the primary point of contact for external partners and contractors, ensuring seamless operational collaboration.

Who we are

Thunderstone is a deep-tech startup reinventing how the world accesses critical metals. Traditional mining is excavation-heavy, expensive, and environmentally destructive. We’re using underground lightning (high-voltage pulses) to open microscopic pathways in ore bodies, letting fluids flow and extract metals without digging.

Our work makes mining cleaner, cheaper, and scalable, unlocking the nickel, copper, and other metals the clean energy transition demands. We’re proud to be part of the Breakthrough Energy Fellows program, backed by world-class investors and strategic partners (including Rio Tinto).

If you want to be part of a company where your work doesn't just move experiments forward, but helps move the planet toward a sustainable future, Thunderstone is the place.

• 5-10 years of experience. Start-up, scale-up, mixed with corporate experience is a bonus.
• Experience in operations, lab management, or startup administration, ideally in a deep-tech, hardware, or scientific environment.
• Strong organizational and multitasking skills; you can manage a wide range of responsibilities without dropping the ball (or communicating that priorities need to shift).
• Detail-oriented and reliable; you can keep small but important tasks from slipping through the cracks.
• Comfortable in a dynamic startup environment where priorities shift quickly and you can adapt to new challenges.
• Impact-driven.

• Competitive Bay Area salary ($100k–$150k, depending on experience).
• Equity options with strong upside; total compensation often close to double base salary.
• Milestone-based raise opportunities.
• Flexible time-off: We trust you to manage your schedule and take the time you need to recharge.
• Be a founding part of a mission-driven startup shaping the future of mining.