Full-Time

Site Operations Associate

Nooks

Nooks

51-200 employees

Platform enabling classified government–private collaboration

Compensation Overview

$55k - $65k/yr

No H1B Sponsorship

Arlington County, Arlington, VA, USA

In Person

US Citizenship, US Top Secret Clearance Required

Category
Facilities Operations (1)
Required Skills
Sales
Customer Service

Get referred to Nooks

See people who can refer or advise you

Requirements
  • Experience in a customer-facing, hospitality, or office administration role.
  • A demonstrated habit of noticing problems or gaps before being told about them and solving issues within the scope of authority.
  • Strong organizational follow-through to track multiple open items, including work orders, vendor issues, and customer requests.
  • Clear, professional written and verbal communication with customers, vendors, and security personnel.
  • Comfort operating in, or genuine willingness to learn, a defense- or security-adjacent environment, including the importance of access control and protocol.
  • Ability to work on-site full-time during business hours.
  • Ability to remain stationed at a front desk or reception area for extended periods during business hours, with occasional lifting and carrying of supply deliveries, mail, and event materials weighing up to 25–35 pounds.
  • United States citizenship and ability to maintain eligibility up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level within 180 days of hire.
Responsibilities
  • Own the front-of-house experience for every customer, member, and visitor by greeting them, understanding their needs, and providing a professional site experience.
  • Serve as the first point of contact for routine administrative and logistical support, resolving straightforward requests and escalating security, IT account-level, or commercial matters to the appropriate teams.
  • Build relationships with regular customers and members, anticipate their needs, and plan and run site engagement activities and events.
  • Own day-to-day office operations, including supplies, badges, keycards, conference rooms, and customer walkthrough readiness.
  • Run opening and closing procedures as assigned and manage mail, deliveries, and daily logistics according to site protocol, including procedures for items entering controlled areas.
  • Identify and report facility issues and track work orders through completion.
  • Manage the day-to-day relationship with cleaning and maintenance vendors, verify delivered work against contracts, and hold vendors to site standards.
  • Monitor vendor performance, escalate service gaps or recurring issues, and provide input during contract renewals.
  • Coordinate vendor scheduling and access to avoid disrupting customer visits or classified on-site activity.
  • Support visitor-control procedures by verifying approved Visitor Authorization Requests, issuing and tracking badges, and coordinating escorts for uncleared visitors.
  • Conduct routine walkthroughs of common areas and entry points and report issues such as propped doors, unbadged individuals, and unattended materials to the security team.
  • Recognize and promptly escalate potential security concerns, documenting them according to company procedure while leaving investigation and resolution to the security team.
  • Work daily with the Site Lead while independently owning front-of-house, office, and vendor domains.
  • Coordinate with the security team on visitor control, badge issuance, and incident escalation.
  • Coordinate with the Growth team on account-level customer and member matters.
  • Manage cleaning and maintenance vendors directly and support Human Resources and leadership with site events and visiting executive logistics.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience coordinating or managing vendor or contractor relationships.
  • Familiarity with visitor control, badging, or access-control systems, including Visitor Authorization Requests and Defense Information System for Security.
  • Genuine interest in growing into a sales, operations, or security role at Nooks.
  • Experience at a cleared facility.
  • Experience in flexible workspace, coworking, or premium hospitality environments.

Nooks offers a platform-as-a-service that enables government agencies and private defense/space firms to collaborate on classified projects. It accelerates tech adoption in national security by handling facility clearance sponsorship and personnel clearances, simplifying compliance and onboarding. The platform provides secure workflows and vendor-access controls, expanding options for vendors while managing the complexities of clearance processes. Its veteran-led team focuses on moving faster, reducing costs, and letting clients concentrate on their core work within the government–private sector ecosystem.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$32.7M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2021

Get referred to Nooks

See people who can refer or advise you

Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • The June 9, 2025 $25M Series A funds expansion into Colorado Springs and Arlington.
  • Defense customers value faster classified access; Nooks' 2026 awards validate urgent market demand.
  • Updated July 2026 site activity and leadership changes suggest active scaling, not retrenchment.

What critics are saying

  • Federal contract dependence makes a WHS protest or award delay immediately painful in 2026.
  • Cisco, Microsoft, and incumbent SCIF landlords can undercut Nooks on security procurement and scale.
  • A missed clearance, facility-accreditation, or cybersecurity failure would destroy trust and stop revenue.

What makes Nooks unique

  • Nooks sells classified-infrastructure-as-a-service, not just software, with subscription access to secure workspaces.
  • Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Zigg Capital backed the $25M Series A on June 9, 2025.
  • Nooks won MDA SHIELD IDIQ and a WHS SBIR Phase III contract in 2026.

Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?

Benefits

Stock Options

Company Equity

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

8%

1 year growth

6%

2 year growth

0%
FinSMEs
Jun 9th, 2025
Nooks Closes $25M Series A Funding

Nooks, a Crystal City, VA-based classified-infrastructure-as-a-service (CIaaS) model company for workspaces, raised $25M in Series A funding.

Nooks
Jun 9th, 2025
Nooks Closes $25M Series A Funding Round with Unmatched Team of Industry Leaders

Nooks raises $25M Series A to expand its subscription-access classified workspaces. Backed by Zigg Capital, Upper90, SAIC, and Lockheed Martin, Nooks is redefining access to secure, flexible classified workspaces for government and defense.

MB News
Jun 9th, 2025
Nooks Raises $25M in Series A Funding

Nooks has closed a $25M Series A funding round, partnering with Zigg Capital, Upper90, SAIC, and Lockheed Martin. The funding will enhance Nooks' Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS) model, aiming to improve secure collaboration for government and industry. The investment will support Nooks' growth in key markets and its integration of advanced technologies, with a focus on transforming classified infrastructure access.

Forbes
Aug 3rd, 2023
Small Companies Can’T Access Classified Work Without A Secure Space To Work In

A modular SCIF facility designed by Maryland-based builder, Modular Genius. Modular GeniusIf your small defense business has desirable technology that the government considers classified, you’ll need a secure workspace before you can secure government work. It’s a Catch-22 that Congress wants to alleviate.The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act includes language from both the House and Senate meant to open up existing classified work-spaces to small businesses.Building or gaining access to a government-approved secure workspace is a costly burden that adds to the already thorny problems defense startups face in getting security clearances for their employees and in getting their companies as a whole “covered” or cleared to work on classified projects.Such hurdles curb or prevent innovative, potentially war-winning technologies and ideas from being embraced and applied by the Pentagon says Andrew “Scar” Van Timmeren, vice president of government solutions for Blue Force Technologies, a small North Carolina-based business which recently secured a contract to build prototype unmanned adversary training aircraft for the Air Force.A former USAF F-22 pilot, Van Timmeren has seen the problem surface repeatedly among the cohort of defense startups traveling in the same circles as Blue Force, shutting them out of potentially meaningful contracts and contributions to national security.“It’s remarkably easy for continued contracts to go to incumbents within the cleared [classified] space because of the time and effort it takes to increase the number of new businesses that have access to cleared [workspace].”Van Timmeren cites an example wherein defense program managers are evaluating candidates to perform radar cross section survivability analysis of an aircraft. There’s already a cleared company with its own approved secure workspace. Another new firm may want to enter into that mix. But for DoD, “the easy button is to just go to the incumbent which may not be a small business.”Setting up a secure workspace isn’t easy

Intelligence360 News
Jul 19th, 2022
San Francisco California based Nooks is raising $5,000,000.00 in New Equity Investment.

San Francisco, CA - According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Nooks is raising $5,000,000.00 in new funding. Sources indicate as part of senior management Chief Executive Officer, Sean Blackman played a