Operations Manager

ABOUT FIFTY YEARS

Fifty Years is a pre-seed and seed venture capital firm backing founders using technology to solve the world’s biggest problems. We’ve helped build companies turning CO₂ into jet fuel, reprogramming cells to cure disease, and reinventing the materials we wear and eat.

In the UK, we run 5050, a venture-building programme helping scientists and engineers become founders. We run two cohorts each year, powered by ARIA, to support PhD students, postdocs, and industry engineers to build civilizationally important companies. We’re a small, high-energy team working across London, San Francisco, and Poland. We’ve all built things ourselves and now pour our energy into enabling the next generation of founders to build our Star Trek future.

THE ROLE

We’re scaling 5050: growing our UK cohorts, bringing in most of the UK’s top scientists and engineers, building tools to run it better, and productising the programme. We’re looking for a relentless operator to serve as the operational backbone of Fifty Years in the UK.

This is a builder’s role. You’ll own the executing the programme, events, and space operations that keep 5050 and our London deeptech startup hub thriving. You’ll work alongside our UK leads to turn a six-storey Soho building into the place where the UK’s most ambitious scientists and engineers come to start companies.

You’ll have real autonomy and be trusted to make the call in the moment. We move fast, we value judgment over process for the sake of it, and we care about the outcome most. This is a role and team for people who love people, events, order, and figuring it out.

This role is for someone who loves people, events and order. You’ll embrace new skills by working with a world-class team. And you’ll build upon your experience with tools (Notion, Airtable, Claude, AI tools). You believe no task is too small or too big.

We don’t count days in the week, we usually get sucked into our work. Our events run into the evening, so you’ll often be here until 9 or 10pm locking up after an external event. Some vendor slots only exist at 9am. We run roughly six 5050 weekends a year, and you’ll be a part of that experience, delivering it alongside and growing too. The team lives and breathes this, and we’ll expect the same from you.

Some of the work is unglamorous. You’ll set up and clear rooms, move furniture, chase a leak before the landlord arrives, and unlock the door when someone rings the bell. If that reads as beneath you, this isn’t your role. If it reads as the satisfying, hands-on, make-it-happen side of building something real, keep reading.

The flipside of working with a high intensity team, is that we know self-care is key to success. This means, you’re encouraged to recharge in any form that works for you: go for a run, meditate, protect your own engine. We do, and we mean it.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

5050 PROGRAMME EXECUTION

• Run the operational engine of 5050 cohorts, from session planning through to tracking the cohort success metric
• Produce and execute flawless hybrid sessions, retreats, and workshops.
• Secure venues, vendors, travel, and accommodation for founders, guest speakers, and the team
• Support recruiting, applicant screening and interview scheduling for the next cohort
• Help evaluate and triage incoming applicants working on hard science and deep tech problems
• Handle operational tasks: founder reimbursement, guest scheduling, programme reporting, and programme invoicing
• Support relationship building with key stakeholders

DEEP TECH HUB: COMMUNITY & OPERATIONS

• Cultivate our six-storey Soho building into a world-class home for the UK’s deep tech community. This is a space full of founders, their first hires, the people they’re recruiting or selling too; not your typical office.
• Welcome founders, speakers, scientists, and ecosystem leaders, and lead end-to-end execution of the events we host in the space.
• Own vendor relationships end-to-end — sourcing, maintenance, budgets, renewals — and keep the space founder-ready day to day.
• Support ecosystem building and PRIMED, our pipeline of talent too early for 5050 but primed to level up their intensity and ambition

YOU

• Energised by the work itself: Setting up a room, solving a vendor problem, and making the building hum should genuinely satisfy you, not something you tolerate to reach the interesting parts.
• Have a builder’s mindset. You love building communities and have experience in operations, events, or programme coordination, ideally at a startup or another fast-moving organisation. Most of our strongest candidates have three to four years behind them, or less experience and an unusually steep slope.
• Bring operational and organisational excellence. You love lists and calendars, you build systems rather than one-off fixes, and you pick up new tools fast (Airtable, Notion, Claude, and light automation). You’re comfortable owning budgets, receipts, and reimbursements.
• Are intellectually honest. You own your mistakes out loud and learn from them fast.
• Have high energy and independence. You thrive in fast-moving environments, take pride in the details, and take full ownership of outcomes
• Are genuinely curious about deep tech and how science becomes a product.
• Are logistics-ready. You have the right to work in the UK, you’ll be in the building in person, and you’re happy to travel across the UK for events and retreats.

WHAT YOU’LL GET

A front-row seat to how scientists become founders, and a real role in making it happen. You’ll work with an operationally excellent team that builds systems, not one-off fixes. You’ll grow fast, learn how venture building actually works, and help shape how London’s deep tech community comes together to solve civilisationally important challenges. You'll report directly to the UK leads and have real ownership from day one.