
Operations Manager - Waste Services
Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County
Nashville, TN, TNFull-time$108–135K/yrPosted 1 day agoStill listed today
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At a glance
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Requirements
Credentials this posting asks for.
Job overview
The Operations Manager oversees Metro’s Waste Services collection system, with responsibility for modernizing operations, reducing the system’s carbon footprint, and enforcing waste regulations and city ordinances. The role manages collection services, budgets, and staff; supports the city’s long-term zero-waste goals; and reports on operational results and environmental impacts. It also coordinates public education and responds to service requests and complaints.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
The Operations Manager performs advanced level professional duties of considerable difficulty in managing a major program within Division of Waste Services. This position will be responsible for modernizing Metro’s Waste Management collection system and running it efficiently, diminishing its carbon footprint, and overseeing the enforcement of waste management regulations and city ordinances to provide the highest quality of service to our customers. Waste Services is responsible for weekly curbside waste and every other week curbside recycling collection for over 151,000 customers in the urban services district as well as collection of over 200 public litter baskets in the downtown Nashville corridor. The division also operates four convenience centers where residents of Davidson County can bring waste, recycling, bulk items, food waste, household hazardous waste, and other items for recycling or disposal and eight recycling drop-off locations available to residents who do not qualify for curbside recycling collection.Waste Services currently employs staff members working in collection, administration, customer service, education, landfill engineering, development review, and outreach.
- Administers waste management collection systems, including residential and business collection, litter cleanup, convenience centers, ancillary services, downtown collections, recyclables, special event services, cart distribution, and enforcement of division's rules and city ordinances pertaining to collection.
- Identifies and implements waste reduction measures.
- Establishes goals to improve customer service, increase efficiency, and enhance revenue streams.
- Manages and administers collection system's budget in accordance with division goals and objectives, providing director information regarding status of current expenditures and current needs.
- Provides regular, daily supervision to include the hiring, directing, training, setting and monitoring work activities, performance reviews, and disciplinary actions.
- Establishes expectations and accountability.
- Conducts complex research and analysis.
- Provides critical information and statistics for implementing all or part of the master plan to move the city toward the long-term goal of being a zero waste community.
- Manages, track, and report operational needs or problems and offers creative and effective solutions.
- Monitors other cities and new developments in collection systems.
- Researches and recommend any equipment changes that would improve collection, protect personnel, and save energy.
- Prepares reports of results achieved through implementation of initiatives applied to the collection system and any environmental impact.
- Provides leadership role in coordinating special meetings to educate the administration, Council or public on plans and progress in collection area.
- Responds orally or in writing to requests and complaints from customers, councilmembers, mayor, commissioner, and senior advisers, and officials of other counties or private haulers that bring recyclables to the MRF.
- May conduct route checking, accidents, and convenience center visits when necessary.
- May be required to work during inclement weather /emergency situations.
Bachelor's Degree from an accredited college or university and eight (8) years of increasingly responsible experience involving Waste Services operations including four (4) years of related management experience. OR High School Diploma and twelve (12) years of increasingly responsible experience involving Waste Services operations, including four (4) years of related management experience.
LICENSES REQUIRED:
Valid Driver's License
Candidates with accreditations earned in a foreign institute are encouraged to apply.
Note: Per Metro Ordinance No. SO94-1078. All employees of the Metropolitan Government shall be residents of the State of Tennessee or become residents of the state within six (6) months of employment as a prerequisite to employment with the Metropolitan Government.• Experience in managing diverse workforce engaged in delivery of services (transportation logistics, waste, trucking or similar operations)
- Experience in project development, implementation, and development techniques relating to transportation logistics, waste, trucking, or similar operations
- Identify innovative approaches to solving problems with available resources/funding.
- Commercial Driver License (CDL) Class B
We are an equal opportunity employer that values diversity at all levels. All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply. Metro Nashville Government respects the religious beliefs and practices of all employees and will make, on request, an accommodation for such observances when a reasonable accommodation is available that does not create an undue hardship on business operations. Requests for ADA or other protected accommodations for the recruitment process should be directed to Human Resources at 615-862-6640.
How this job compares
Set against the 8,189 open Operations Manager jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 11, 2026.
- Pay
- This posting$108–135K/yr
- Tennessee median$77–116K/yr93 salary ranges
- US median$82–115K/yr4,767 salary ranges
This range's midpoint, $121K, is 27% above the Tennessee median midpoint ($95K) — in the middle half of Operations Manager salary ranges in Tennessee.
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 179 open Operations Manager jobs in Tennessee and 8,189 across the US. 2% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Hiring the most in Tennessee
- Amazon28 open
- Whataburger10 open
- Raising Cane's9 open
- Experience
- This posting asks for at least 8 years of experience — more than three in four Operations Manager postings that state a minimum ask for (median 4 years, across 6,179 postings).
- Education
- 1,618 of the 8,189 open Operations Manager jobs (20%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 11, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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