Operations Coordinator
Northwind Labs · Manchester, United Kingdom
- Salary
- £26K – £31K/yr
- Job type
- Full-time
- Level
- Entry level
- Location type
- Hybrid
What this role actually involves
CareerHub analysis
Northwind Labs is hiring a Operations Coordinator on a full-time basis in Manchester, United Kingdom. The role is hybrid and pitched at entry level, so the hiring team will expect working familiarity with Excel, Communication and Project management rather than classroom exposure. There are 5 core responsibilities attached to the position; the first two are usually what the interview actually focuses on. Northwind Labs operates in software, which shapes both the pace of the work and the kind of examples that land well in an interview.
About the job
Keep the internal machinery running: onboarding new customers, coordinating the support rota, and owning the reporting the leadership team reads on Monday.
Responsibilities
- Coordinate customer onboarding across sales, support and engineering
- Maintain the weekly operations report
- Own the support rota and holiday cover
- Process supplier invoices and chase approvals
- Improve at least one manual process per quarter
Requirements
- Strong organisational skills and genuine attention to detail
- Confident in spreadsheets — lookups and pivot tables at minimum
- Clear written communication
- Comfortable chasing people politely and persistently
- Right to work in the United Kingdom
The skills that will be tested, explained
Written by our editorial team, not taken from the listing.
Excel
On the job: Modelling, cleaning and summarising data quickly — lookups, pivot tables, and building a sheet someone else can maintain.
How it is assessed: A timed modelling test is common in finance and operations roles.
On your CV: Say what the model was used for and who used it.
Communication
On the job: Explaining a decision to someone who does not share your context, writing updates people actually read, and asking questions early instead of guessing.
How it is assessed: The whole interview is the assessment. Structure matters more than polish.
On your CV: Point to artefacts: documentation you own, a proposal you wrote that changed a decision.
Project management
On the job: Turning an ambiguous goal into a sequence of deliverables with owners and dates, then keeping the plan honest when reality intervenes.
How it is assessed: Behavioural questions about a project that slipped and what you did about it.
On your CV: State budget, team size, and delivery date versus plan.
Customer service
On the job: Resolving a problem while leaving the person feeling respected, and spotting the patterns worth escalating.
How it is assessed: Role play with a difficult scenario, plus metrics questions.
On your CV: Quote CSAT, resolution time, or ticket volume handled.
Salary insight
This role advertises £26K – £31K/yr. For a entry level position in Manchester, United Kingdom, treat the top of the band as achievable only if you match nearly every requirement listed. If you are asked for expectations first, give a range whose bottom you would genuinely accept, and confirm what sits alongside base pay — bonus, pension, leave, and any allowance for commuting.
Where this role leads
- 1Junior Operations Coordinator — first 12 to 18 months, focused on delivery with supervision
- 2Operations Coordinator — owning work end to end
- 3Senior Operations Coordinator — setting standards and mentoring
How to apply for this role well
Tailoring your CV
- Put Excel, Communication, Project management in the top third of page one. Most screens for a Operations Coordinator take under a minute, and recruiters read top-down.
- Mirror the language of the listing where it is honest to do so. If the advert says "Excel", write "Excel" — not a synonym an applicant tracking system will miss.
- Lead each bullet with a verb and close it with a number. "Managed reporting" is invisible; "Rebuilt weekly reporting for 12 branches, cutting prep time from 6 hours to 40 minutes" is not.
- The listing puts "Coordinate customer onboarding across sales, support and engineering" first, which usually signals the day-one priority. Make sure one bullet on your CV maps directly to it.
- Keep it to one page and export as PDF so your layout survives.
Your cover letter
- Open with the specific role and where you saw it: "I am applying for the Operations Coordinator role at Northwind Labs." No suspense, no throat-clearing.
- Paragraph two is the one that matters. Take a single requirement from the listing and give a concrete example of doing it, with the outcome.
- Show that you know something about Northwind Labs beyond its homepage — a product decision, a market they operate in, a recent change in software.
- Close with availability and a clear next step. Three to four short paragraphs, under 300 words, in the body of the email if you are applying by email.
- Never send the same letter twice. Reviewers can tell, and a generic letter is worse than none.
Before you hit send
- A CV tailored to this listing, saved as PDF with your name in the filename.
- A short cover note that names the role and one relevant result.
- Two referees who have agreed in advance to be contacted.
- Ten minutes to complete the application form on this page.
Interview preparation
- Prepare a two-minute answer to "why this role at Northwind Labs?" that references the company's work in software.
- Have three STAR stories ready — situation, task, action, result — that cover Excel and Communication.
- On Excel: A timed modelling test is common in finance and operations roles.
- Expect at least one question about working hybrid, especially how you keep work visible to people who cannot see your screen.
- Prepare two questions of your own. Good ones: what does success look like in the first 90 days, and what does the team find hardest right now?
Industry context
Northwind Labs works in Software. As a 120 employees organisation, that affects how the Operations Coordinator role is scoped: smaller teams tend to want breadth and a bias to action, larger ones want depth and evidence that you can work across functions. Candidates who research the sector — its customers, its regulation, its current pressures — interview noticeably better than those who research only the company.
Northwind Labs builds reporting and forecasting software used by regional retail chains to plan stock and staffing. The engineering team is small relative to the customer base, which means engineers here talk to customers directly and own features from design through to support. Hiring is deliberately slow and the interview process is unusually transparent about scope and pay.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Operations Coordinator role at Northwind Labs remote?
Partly. It is a hybrid role based in Manchester, United Kingdom, so expect a mix of office and home days. Ask how many days on site are expected each week.
What salary does this role pay?
The advertised range is £26K – £31K/yr. Total package may also include bonus, pension and leave, so ask for the full breakdown at screening stage.
How do I apply?
Use the application form on this page. You will need your CV and about ten minutes.
How long does a response usually take?
Two to three weeks is typical. If you have heard nothing after ten working days, a short, polite follow-up to the recruiter is appropriate and will not count against you.
What experience level is required?
Entry level. If you meet roughly 70% of the requirements it is still worth applying — very few candidates match every line of a job advert.
Apply for this job
Your CV and details go to Northwind Labs. It takes a couple of minutes.
Know someone right for this role?
Share the listing — they land on this page with the full description and can apply from here.
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Listing last updated August 15, 2026. The analysis, skills breakdown, salary insight and interview guidance on this page were written by the CareerHub editorial team and are independent of the employer. Always verify pay and conditions with the employer before accepting an offer.