FreeStand Sampling
Website:
freestand.in
Job details:
Company: Free Stand Sampling Solutions Pvt. Ltd. ("FreeStand")
Location: On-site at the FreeStand fulfilment warehouse, Delhi NCR. This is a floor role, not a desk role.
Type: Full-time · Leadership Track (12-month proving phase → Head-of-Operations trajectory) Reports to: [Founder / CBO]
Read this before you apply
Most operations jobs are advertised with glossy words and a list of responsibilities. We're going to do the opposite first.
This role is run from a warehouse. Not a co-working space, not a glass cabin - a working fulfilment floor with sample boxes, tape, pallets, courier pickups and a packing line. You'll have a full warehouse and a team at your disposal; you won't be doing the line work yourself. But you will lead from the floor, not from a distance - and for the first 6-12 months that means most of your time spent among the team and the work: understanding how sample kits actually move, knowing the pack bench, walking pick paths, standing at the courier desk when RTOs spike during a campaign. The best operators here know every process intimately because they consider none of it beneath them.
We're upfront about this because the people who thrive here read that and get excited, not deterred. If being close to the floor sounds beneath you, this isn't your role. If it sounds like exactly where real operators are made, keep reading.
About FreeStand
FreeStand is a digital sampling and customer-engagement platform for FMCG brands. Founded in 2019 and built in Delhi, we help brands plan, execute, monitor and audit product-sampling campaigns digitally - putting the right sample in the right consumer's hands at the right moment, and turning every sample into a measurable customer-engagement opportunity. We run campaigns for brands across India, managed from our Delhi base.
A few things worth knowing about who you'd be joining:
- We work with the biggest names in FMCG. FreeStand is the sampling partner of choice for 40+ brands, including L'Oréal (CeraVe), HUL, Nestlé, Nivea, Reckitt, Emami, Mars Petcare, Cipla (Nicotex) and Piramal (Little's).
- Our campaigns operate at real scale. Individual launches have reached 10M+ consumers (e.g. L'Oréal CeraVe's India launch and Nivea's first-party-data campaign), with customer-satisfaction scores above 95% on programmes like Piramal Little's.
- We're backed and recognised. FreeStand is backed by Venture Catalysts, SucSEED Indovation and Nocking Point Advisors across multiple seed rounds, and has been recognised by the Google for Startups Accelerator (Women Founders cohort), IIM Calcutta Innovation Park and I-Venture @ ISB.
- We're founder-led and lean. You will work directly with the founders, your decisions will be visible every single day, and your wins will be felt immediately.
Here's the part most candidates miss: every digital campaign ends as a physical event. A sample has to be received, stored, kitted, packed, dispatched and delivered to a real consumer and sometimes returned. That physical engine is what this role owns. When a brand like L'Oréal or HUL trusts FreeStand with a launch, the warehouse is where that trust is kept or lost. Operations is not our back office. It is the product.
The Mission:
Turn FreeStand's sampling-fulfilment operation from our biggest cost-and-pain centre into our sharpest competitive edge - an engine reliable enough that India's largest FMCG brands renew with us because we never drop the ball and build the systems, team and standards that let us repeat it across every new warehouse and market we enter.
This is not a vague "improve operations" brief. You will own a specific, measurable set of outcomes, and you'll know exactly what good looks like.
What you'll own
The full sampling-fulfilment engine, end to end:
- Inbound & sample inventory. Receive and manage brand sample stock; enforce FEFO/FIFO and stock-aging discipline; ABC-classify; stamp out dead/expired/obsolete inventory with a fixed monthly write-off and liquidation cadence; reclaim warehouse space and pick locations.
- Kitting & assembly. Build sample kits and campaign boxes accurately and fast - the right pairings, the right inserts, zero mix-ups.
- Packaging economics. Re-engineer packaging from "cheapest material" to lowest total cost per dispatch. Build a right-size box/mailer matrix mapped to real product dimensions. Kill the wasted minutes at the pack bench.
- Dispatch & delivery. Run dispatch to consumers across India, each campaign with its own SLA and volume profile.
- Returns (RTO) & reverse logistics. Drive RTO down hard: root-cause it, fix address quality and COD confirmation upstream, set an NDR re-attempt SLA, and hold couriers to a scorecard.
- Throughput, capacity & dispatch speed. Redesign pick-pack-dispatch so we clear high-volume campaign days on the day. Establish dispatch cutoffs, same-day commitments and a measured orders-per-person-per-hour standard.
- Demand & capacity planning. Plan labour, material and space against the brand campaign calendar so a big launch never catches us flat-footed.
- Vendor & 3PL management. Own courier, last-mile and material-vendor relationships, contracts and performance.
- Quality, compliance & audit. FreeStand sells brands the ability to audit their campaigns so fulfilment accuracy, proof-of-delivery data and sample integrity (no expiry, no tampering, correct pairing) are non-negotiable and roll straight into client reporting.
- Cost & data. Own cost-per-sample-delivered, and the operational metrics that feed our client dashboards.
- The operating system. SOPs, daily metrics, a war-room cadence. You leave behind a function that runs on numbers and discipline not heroics.
The first 6-12 months: the proving phase
This is the on-ground phase, and it's where you earn the rest of the trajectory.
- Months 0 to 2: Learn the floor cold. Live in the warehouse. Understand every process. Build the baseline metrics that don't exist today. By the end, you can tell us the exact cost and cause of every problem we face.
- Months 2 to 6: Fix the bleeding. Ship the packaging matrix, the inventory-aging system, the RTO root-cause programme and the dispatch-flow redesign. Move the core KPIs in the right direction. Visibly.
- Months 6 to 12: Build the system & the team. Convert your fixes into permanent SOPs, lead the floor team to run them confidently, and prove the operation holds through a peak campaign. This is the gate to promotion.
You won't be left to sink. You'll have direct, regular access to the founders, real budget authority for the changes you justify, and clear targets. What you won't get is vagueness about what success means and that's by design.
The trajectory: why this is worth it
We don't hire this role to manage a warehouse forever. We hire it to grow a leader.
- Clear progression gates. Hit the 12-month KPIs and milestones → promotion to Senior Manager / Head of Fulfilment Operations, owning the full function and a growing team.
- Scope that compounds. As FreeStand opens new fulfilment locations and onboards bigger brands, you become the person who stands up operations each time - building, not maintaining.
- The global prize. FreeStand's ambition runs beyond India. The person who proves they can build a world-class sampling-fulfilment operation here, on the floor is first in line to lead operations as we scale to new geographies. That is a genuine, named prospect of this role - not a vague promise.
The status of this role isn't decoration. It comes from real ownership of numbers that decide whether the biggest FMCG brands in the country keep working with us, direct line of sight to the founders, and a progression path very few operators are handed this early.
Who you are
- You're energised, not embarrassed, by warehouse work and willing to be measured on hard outcomes.
- You think in systems and numbers - you reach for the data before the opinion.
- You've [run / want to run] a real operation and can show where you made something faster, cheaper or more reliable.
- You have the spine to fix root causes and the patience to build SOPs that outlast you.
- You want a leadership career and understand that the floor is the fastest road to it not a detour from it.
Experience in e-commerce/D2C fulfilment, warehouse ops, supply chain, 3PL or last-mile is a strong plus. Raw operational talent, humility and grit can outweigh years on a CV.
How you'll be measured
You will own these KPIs from the start, reviewed on a fixed cadence:
Metric Target (12 months)
RTO %: Best-in-class for the category
Order-to-dispatch time: Same-day before cutoff
Peak-campaign dispatch clearance: Cleared on the day
Dead/expired inventory (% of stock value): Minimal, actively managed down
Packing time per dispatch: Materially reduced
Cost per sample delivered: Materially reduced
Fulfilment accuracy/audit score: Consistently high
Clear ownership, clear targets. This is what makes the role serious and what makes the promotion real when you hit them.
What you get
- Compensation: ₹40,000 to ₹75,000 per month, based on experience and fit + Performance-Based Annual Bonus + ESOPs.
- Direct access to and visibility with the founders.
- Real authority and budget to make the changes you can justify.
- A defined, fast-track path to Head of Operations and beyond.
- A front-row seat to how India's top FMCG brands run launches and the chance to build something, not babysit it.
Selection process
We're selective about this one, on purpose.
- Fill out the form + a short note on the hardest operational problem you've personally fixed.
- A working-session interview - we'll put a real FreeStand operations problem in front of you.
- A half-day on the warehouse floor with us - because we both need to know you'll thrive there, not just tolerate it.
- Final conversation with the entire team.
If the floor excites you and the trajectory speaks to you, apply. We're moving fast.
FreeStand is a woman-led, equal-opportunity workplace. Made with care in Delhi.
Click on Apply to know more.
