Education is more than a basic right – it's essential to our ability to thrive. However, life's challenges can often stand in the way through no fault of our own. We believe that every student deserves access to holistic and wraparound care. Eastside Academy was created as a refuge and place of growth for high school students who may not fit the mold of traditional schools. We are different by design. Our unique and innovative approach to student life reaches beyond traditional education models. We provide an individualized education plan and holistic counseling to all students. Through our housing program, we can provide a safe and stable home environment for students with greater needs.

Director of Operations

Location: Bellevue, Washington

Reports to: Executive Director

Status: Full-time, exempt

Salary: $100,000–$115,000 annually

Build the systems that allow a mission to flourish

Eastside Academy is creating a Director of Operations role for the first time as a deliberate investment in our organizational capacity and future.

Until now, many of these responsibilities have been carried by the Executive Director alongside broader executive leadership responsibilities. This new role brings them together under a dedicated leader who can strengthen the systems, people, and infrastructure supporting the entire organization.

The Director will join organizational leadership, lead an existing Operations Team, and build an operating environment in which people have the clarity, information, and support they need to do their best work.

About Eastside Academy

Eastside Academy is a nonprofit alternative high school and support program in Bellevue, Washington. Our mission is to inspire change in the lives of youth through high school education, counseling, recovery, housing, and life skills in a Christ-centered environment.

Our students often come to Eastside Academy after not finding meaning, value, or success in traditional school settings. We walk alongside students and families through an integrated model of education, mental health care, and relational support that helps young people rediscover hope, purpose, and the possibility of a different future.

What winning looks like

The Director of Operations creates an organization in which the systems supporting the mission are dependable, visible, appropriately owned, and increasingly proactive. Staff spend less energy navigating operational friction, leaders have trustworthy information, risks are addressed early, and organizational growth does not require proportional increases in complexity.

Success means that:

• Facilities, technology, vendors, and administrative systems function reliably.
• Financial processes are accurate, timely, and well controlled.
• Employees experience clear and dependable people systems.
• Risks, compliance requirements, and recurring deadlines are addressed proactively.
• The Operations Team demonstrates increasing ownership and effectiveness.
• Routine operational matters no longer require the Executive Director’s involvement.
• EA’s systems become more scalable and less dependent on individual staff knowledge.

What you will lead

Organizational Operations + Infrastructure

Build and improve organization-wide workflows, calendars, facilities, technology, purchasing, vendor relationships, and administrative systems. Clarify ownership, coordinate cross-functional handoffs, remove operational friction, and lead Operations-owned logistics for major organizational events and transitions.

Financial Operations + Stewardship

Lead the Office Manager + Financial Administrator and oversee reliable financial-administration systems. Partner with external accounting professionals, strengthen internal controls, monitor spending, support budgeting and forecasting, and provide leaders with trustworthy financial information for decision-making.

People Operations + Organizational Support

Coordinate HR administration, onboarding, offboarding, benefits, personnel documentation, required training, policies, and recurring employment processes. Build dependable systems that support employees and supervisors while department leaders retain authority for hiring, supervision, performance management, and personnel decisions within their teams.

Risk, Compliance, + Organizational Readiness

Maintain organization-wide compliance calendars, documentation, renewals, records, safety planning, and emergency-readiness systems. Coordinate timelines and approvals across departments while functional leaders retain responsibility for the accuracy and submission of reporting from their areas.

Operations Team Leadership + Organizational Capacity

Lead, coach, and develop the Office Manager + Financial Administrator and Manager of Community Engagement. Establish clear priorities, decision rights, accountability, and sustainable workloads. Strengthen the systems supporting volunteers, mentors, community partnerships, family-resource navigation, and community-resource mobilization.

Executive leverage and organizational execution

Across these five areas, the Director translates established leadership decisions into clear ownership, timelines, systems, and follow-through. The Director maintains visibility into cross-functional commitments, prepares operational information for decisions, and helps organizational priorities move from decision to completion.

The Director has meaningful authority over Operations-owned systems and day-to-day operational decisions within approved strategy, policy, and budget.

Functional leaders retain responsibility for Education, Counseling, fundraising strategy, organizational culture, program outcomes, and supervision of their teams. Cross-functional coordination does not transfer those responsibilities to Operations, and the Director is not the default owner of work simply because it is unclear or spans departments.

What you bring

We care less about whether your experience follows a particular timeline and more about what you have successfully led, built, and implemented.

The strongest candidates will demonstrate:

• Implementation + Follow-Through: You turn decisions into action, establish clear plans and ownership, close loops, and remain engaged until a system is implemented, adopted, and working reliably.
• Tenacity: You persist through ambiguity, resistance, competing priorities, and the less-visible details required to finish important work. You do not confuse a good idea or documented plan with a completed result.
• Systems Building: You have designed or improved organizational systems, workflows, documentation, decision rights, and recurring operating rhythms.
• Operational Breadth: You have held meaningful responsibility across several operational areas, such as finance, people operations, technology, facilities, vendors, compliance, administration, or organizational risk.
• People Leadership: You have directly led and developed staff, established accountability, delegated meaningful responsibility, and helped others grow in ownership.
• Financial Stewardship: You are comfortable working with budgets, financial reports, internal controls, payroll-related processes, forecasting, and accounting professionals.
• Project Leadership: You can move complex work from ambiguity to clear ownership, milestones, implementation, and completion.
• Operational Judgment: You can distinguish what requires immediate attention, what can wait, what should be delegated, and what requires executive involvement.
• Change Stewardship: You introduce new systems with attention to communication, trust, adoption, and organizational readiness.
• Collaborative Leadership: You work effectively across functions while respecting the authority and expertise of other leaders.
• Integrity + Discretion: You handle sensitive financial, personnel, student, and organizational information with sound judgment and care.
• Mission Alignment: You align with Eastside Academy’s mission, values, relational commitments, and Christ-centered identity.

Relevant experience may come from nonprofit operations, school administration, business operations, people operations, finance, human services, or another environment requiring leadership across multiple organizational functions. Experience in a small-to-midsize organization, especially during growth or organizational change, would be particularly valuable.

You do not need to have held the title “Director of Operations” or meet every preferred qualification to apply. If you can demonstrate that you have built systems, led people, exercised sound operational judgment, and carried important work through implementation, we would like to hear from you.

Compensation and benefits

Salary: $100,000–$115,000 annually, depending on relevant experience, demonstrated capability, and qualifications.

Eastside Academy offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes:

• EA-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees
• A flexible spending account (FSA)
• An employer-sponsored 403(b) retirement plan
• EA-paid life insurance
• Two weeks of paid time off (PTO)
• Paid holidays and school breaks
• Sick and safe time, along with additional leave benefits
• Professional-development support
• An Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Eligibility requirements and the terms of the applicable benefit plans govern coverage.

How to apply

Please submit a résumé and cover letter through the link.

In your cover letter, tell us what draws you to Eastside Academy’s mission and how your experience has prepared you to build systems that help people and programs do their best work.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.