Office Manager (Orange County)

About the company

Hop Aero is a venture-backed startup building the physical internet. Our mission is to enable resilient global logistics to protect and improve our way of life.

Hop Aero's founding team has founded aerospace companies, taken hardware to orbit, launched 20+ Falcon 9s at SpaceX, and led engineering across some of the world's most advanced aerospace programs. We are well-capitalized with strong venture backing and active government contracts.

About the role

We're hiring an Office Manager to run the systems that keep Hop Aero moving. You'll be one of the first non-engineers at the company, and you'll own the operational backbone that the business runs on.

You'll own office management, handle HR and bookkeeping admin, coordinate VIP visits and events, and support procurement and shipping and receiving. You'll work directly with the founders, the accountant, vendors, and anyone who walks through our front door, including congressional staff, investors, and military customers.

You'll build processes from scratch, unblock engineers who need parts yesterday, host visitors from the DoD, and make sure onboarding, payroll, and facilities all just work. If you like bringing order to a fast environment and being the person everyone relies on, you'll do well here.

The right candidate will grow with the company, build the playbook, and earn the path into operations leadership as we scale.

What you'll do

• Own day-to-day operations of our HQ, from vendors to supplies to facilities

• Own new hire onboarding end to end, from health insurance to internal tools and workspace

• Administer our internal tool stack, including Rippling, Carta, Mercury, and others

• Own the relationship with our external accountant on bookkeeping, payroll, and monthly close

• Own compliance. Keep us in good standing at every level of government, from City to Federal

• Coordinate site visits, congressional delegations, and other major events

• Support procurement and vendor setup for non-technical and light engineering purchases

• Manage shipping, receiving, and delivery intake of mission-critical flight hardware at our HQ

• Own logistics across multiple states

• Build the processes and systems that let the company scale with less chaos

• Act as a cross-functional problem solver who fills gaps before they slow the team down

Requirements

• 1-3 years of experience in office management, admin, operations, or similar

• Strong organizational skills and the discipline to keep multiple parallel threads moving without dropping details

• Confident managing vendor relationships and negotiating when it counts

• Strong written communication, comfortable drafting vendor emails, internal updates, and visitor briefs

• Trusted with the financials, the people data, and what happens in rooms most of the company doesn't see

• Comfortable moving at the pace of a company that goes from whiteboard sketch to flight hardware in a week

• Builds processes from scratch rather than inherit them

• Must be on-site full-time at our HQ in Orange, CA

• Must be a US Person under ITAR - Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.

Nice to have

• Experience in aerospace, space, defense, or hardware startups

• Exposure to government contracting environments and experience hosting government, military, or congressional visitors

• Familiarity with Rippling, Carta, Mercury, QuickBooks, or similar startup tools

• Notary public

What we offer

• Competitive salary and meaningful stock options

• Healthcare package

• Direct access to founders and early influence over how the company operates

• A growth path into operations leadership