Fractional HubSpot/RevOps Operator

Overview

You're the HubSpot operator for Smoke Signals AI's client portfolio. You manage multiple client portals simultaneously, building workflows, sequences, custom properties, reports, dashboards, and integrations. You work directly with the founder (Nick) and occasionally client stakeholders to implement their signal-based GTM systems in HubSpot.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Very early (5 employees, bootstrapped or pre-seed)

Size: 5 employees

Growth: Small team building GTM-as-a-service for B2B companies

Market Position: Niche operator in the crowded "AI-powered GTM" space - differentiating on actual execution vs tools

What This Actually Means

Smoke Signals AI sells a "GTM operating system" to B2B companies. That means they're running marketing and sales operations on behalf of their clients. HubSpot is where all that lives. You're the person who makes HubSpot do what needs to happen.

Every client has different needs - different lead scoring models, different lifecycle stages, different signal integrations, different reporting requirements. You're switching between 3-5 portals per week, picking up context quickly, and building whatever that client needs.

This isn't a strategy role. Nick isn't hiring you to audit portals or create recommendations. He's hiring you to build. The expectation is clear: every Friday you report what you shipped across your client accounts. Not what you worked on or what's in progress - what actually went live.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Building (50%) | Troubleshooting/QA (25%) | Client/Internal Syncs (15%) | Context Switching (10%)

Key Activities

• Workflow and automation building: You create complex workflows for lead routing, lifecycle progression, deal stage automation, and task creation. Not simple "when contact is created, send email" stuff - multi-branch logic with 15+ steps involving multiple objects.

• Custom property architecture: You design and implement custom properties, scoring models, and calculated fields. You're thinking through data structure so reports make sense and scoring actually reflects reality.

• Private app development: When native HubSpot can't do what's needed, you build private apps and UI extensions. This means you're working with HubSpot's developer platform, APIs, and custom code - not just the workflow builder.

• Integration management: You connect HubSpot to enrichment tools, signal providers, and other GTM tools. When integrations break or data flows incorrectly, you're diagnosing and fixing it.

• Reporting and dashboards: You build reports and dashboards that actually tell clients how their GTM motion is performing. Not vanity metrics - pipeline velocity, conversion rates by source, signal effectiveness, etc.

• Data hygiene: You monitor data quality across portals, fix duplicate records, normalize fields, and build processes to keep things clean. Boring but critical.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Context switching is constant: You're never working on one portal for a full day. You jump between 3-5 different clients with different setups, different naming conventions, different business models. It's mentally taxing to keep everything straight.

• Clients change their minds: What you built last week might need to be redone this week because the client realized their lifecycle logic was wrong or their ICP shifted. You need to be okay with rework.

• Friday delivery pressure: The weekly ship expectation is real. If you tend to overthink things or need long runways to feel comfortable, this will stress you out. You need to be comfortable with "good enough to ship" vs "perfect."

• Limited documentation: Early-stage company, small team - you're not inheriting beautifully documented portals. You'll need to reverse-engineer what previous operators built and figure out why things are set up a certain way.

• HubSpot's limitations are frustrating: You'll regularly hit things HubSpot just can't do natively, which means either building workarounds, building custom apps, or telling clients "that's not possible without a major lift."

What Success Looks Like

• You ship 3-5 meaningful builds per week across your client portfolio - not tiny tweaks, but workflows, reports, or integrations that actually move the needle for clients

• Client portals stay clean and functional - no data quality fires, no broken automations, no reports showing wrong numbers

• You proactively identify improvements - you're not waiting to be told what to build, you're noticing inefficiencies and proposing solutions

Who You're Working With

Internally:

• Nick (founder) - You report directly to him. He's technical, expects weekly delivery, and will know if you're not shipping.
• Small team (5 people total) - Everyone wears multiple hats. No bureaucracy, but also no safety net if you don't know something.

Client-Side:

• Marketing Ops people at B2B companies
• Sales leaders who need pipeline reporting
• Occasionally founders or RevOps VPs

What They Care About:

• Does the system work reliably?
• Can they get the data they need to make decisions?
• Are leads flowing correctly through their funnel?
• Is the signal integration actually useful?

Requirements

• 3+ years of hands-on HubSpot experience - not "I used it at a company," you've personally built complex workflows and understand why certain setups work or don't

• Private app and UI extension experience - you've gone beyond native HubSpot features and built custom solutions using their developer platform

• Multi-client experience preferred - agency or freelance background where you juggled multiple portals at once

• Cross-hub competency - you can work across Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, and Content Hub, not just one

• Comfortable with weekly accountability - the Friday ship cadence is non-negotiable, so if you need slower timelines or more ambiguity, this isn't the fit

• Self-sufficient troubleshooter - when something breaks or doesn't work as expected, you dig in and figure it out rather than escalating immediately

What This Isn't

• Not a strategy consulting gig: You're not being hired to audit portals and create PowerPoint recommendations. You're being hired to build.

• Not a full-time role: 20 hours/week means you likely have other clients or another job. Need to be disciplined about time management.

• Not a slow-paced environment: If you like taking two weeks to perfect a workflow before launching it, this will frustrate you. Ship fast, iterate.

• Not a certification factory: Having every HubSpot cert doesn't matter if you can't show real builds you've done. Nick cares about what you've shipped, not badges on your LinkedIn.