Strategy & Operations Manager (Logistics/Physical Goods)

🌍 About Outpost

Global expansion is broken. Without a local entity, conversion rates fall, costs rise, and compliance gets messy. Outpost fixes it.

Selling internationally is a maze of tax, payments, and operational friction. Most brands avoid it or expand slowly and expensively.

Outpost is your modular back office for global commerce.

We started with digital goods: tax compliance, merchant of record, liability transfer. Now we're building the infrastructure for physical goods cross-border commerce including customs duties, landed cost calculation, DDP/DAP routing, import VAT, and clearance operations.

Sell anything, anywhere. Without compromise.

🧠 The Role

This is an Operations role for someone who deeply understands what happens when physical goods cross borders.

You know the difference between customs, duties, tariffs, and import VAT. You understand why HS classification is hard at scale. You've seen what actually goes wrong at clearance. You know when DDP beats DAP on unit economics.

You'll work directly with the CEO to scale Outpost's physical goods capability. We've built the foundation; now we need someone to take it further. That means solving the hard problems: landed cost accuracy at checkout, HS classification at scale, DDP routing logic, carrier/broker orchestration, and merchant onboarding. You'll also work across the business (GTM, product, partnerships) because that's how early-stage companies work.

We want someone who's lived this problem, ideally at a cross-border platform, e-commerce merchant, or logistics company.

🧗 What You'll Get

Yes, the work is intense. But in return, you'll get the chance to build category-defining infrastructure from scratch.

Cross-border e-commerce is a massive market with broken tooling. You'll shape how physical goods infrastructure gets built at Outpost, not just operate someone else's system.

🧩 What You'll Do

Landed Cost & Checkout

Build the systems that calculate duties, tariffs, and import taxes accurately at checkout

Solve HS classification at scale and get the right codes for merchant product catalogs

Ensure landed cost accuracy so DDP doesn't bleed margin or surprise customers

DDP/DAP Strategy

Build the routing logic that decides when to absorb duties (DDP) vs pass through (DAP)

Optimize by order value, margin, product category, and destination market

Understand de minimis thresholds and when simplifications apply (IOSS, UK low-value)

Customs & Clearance Operations

Own carrier and broker relationships with DHL, FedEx, UPS, and postal services

Ensure goods clear customs reliably without delays or customer friction

Handle clearance failures, documentation issues, and stuck shipments

Build the documentation infrastructure including commercial invoices and certificates of origin

Returns & Recovery

Build duty drawback processes to recover duties when goods return

Handle import VAT recovery on returns

Manage refused deliveries, abandoned parcels, and partial refunds

Merchant Onboarding & Platform Integration

Onboard merchants from Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce

Get product data structured for classification

Configure checkout flows for DDP presentation

Integrate with merchant fulfillment and order systems

Cross-Functional Work

Work with product to shape the roadmap based on merchant pain

Support GTM by helping close deals and build merchant playbooks

Build processes and documentation that scale

💥 Example Projects

Build an HS classification framework for a merchant's 10,000-SKU catalog

Design the landed cost calculation logic for UK and EU markets above de minimis

Negotiate carrier account configurations that align with our liability model

Create DDP vs DAP routing rules based on margin thresholds by market

Onboard a Shopify Plus merchant onto Outpost's cross-border infrastructure

Build a duty drawback process for high-return categories (apparel, footwear)

Debug why shipments are getting stuck at German customs and fix the root cause

Develop pre-checkout duty estimation that's accurate within 2%