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Key statistics

The identity block — every fact is canon, none is generated.

5 of 8

Track

Management

Family rungs priced

M1 · M2 · M3 · M4 · M5 · M6

11-0000

manufacturing

Coordinates

3 / 4 spaces

pay@2 · 2026-07

What this role is

Senior leader accountable for the performance and strategy of one or more distribution center or warehouse operations. At the Senior Director (M5) level, the role owns multiple functions or a large department, org-level trade-offs and investment, and drives multi-function results. Leads directors and managers.

What this level does

Directs distribution operations for a large DC or region through subordinate managers, owning P&L, budgeting, and financial performance in the distribution setting
Defines the operational methods and standards for how goods flow through the facility, with decisions that impact division-wide service and cost
Oversees management of warehouse technology systems (WMS, automation tools) to improve operational performance across the operation
Influences executive and major-customer discussions on capacity, service levels, and network investment for the distribution footprint
Leads through department managers to execute strategic planning, policy development, and organizational change across the distribution operation

Knowledge applied: Defines operational methods and technology direction for a large DC or region; impacts division-wide distribution operations.
Complexity & problem solving: Solves complex, operation-wide issues; owns P&L and defines methods for goods flow and technology deployment.
Collaboration & interaction: Influences executives and major customers on key distribution issues; leads through department managers.
Typical experience: 10–12+ years including second-level management and distribution strategy work.

Skills at this level

Distribution Center Operations Management: — Oversees day-to-day movement of goods through a DC — receiving, put-away, picking, packing, and shipping — ensuring efficient flow, order accuracy, and continuous improvement across the facility.
WMS Proficiency: — Uses Warehouse Management Systems to direct put-away and retrieval tasks and maintain accurate location records; at senior levels, directs WMS implementation and specification changes across network DCs.
Warehouse Layout & Process Optimization: — Redesigns warehouse layout and picking/packing processes to raise throughput and accuracy, using WMS-tracked KPIs to identify and remove operational bottlenecks.
Order Fulfillment Workflow: — Coordinates the picking, packing, and shipment-staging cycle so correct items are selected from inventory, packed securely, and dispatched against ship commitments.
Inventory Control & Accuracy: — Governs stock storage, cycle counts, and reconciliation of received goods against shipping records to keep inventory and location data accurate in the WMS.
Warehouse Safety & Compliance: — Enforces safety standards and correct operation of forklifts and warehouse machinery on the floor, ensuring the operation complies with regulatory and internal standards.
P&L & Budget Management: — Manages P&L, budgeting, and financial performance in a distribution setting, trading off labor cost, service levels, and capital investment.
Warehouse Automation & Technology: — Selects and oversees warehouse technology systems and automation tools to improve operational performance across a DC or the distribution network.
Labor Planning & Team Leadership: — Plans and schedules warehouse labor against fluctuating order volume and leads associates and subordinate managers through daily operations and peak/seasonal swings.
Distribution Strategy & Policy Development: — Sets strategic plans and operating policies that align warehouse activities across single or multiple DCs with broader supply chain and business objectives.
Cross-Functional Supply Chain Coordination: — Works with inventory planning, transportation, and commercial teams to synchronize dock-to-stock and stock-to-ship handoffs and optimize end-to-end supply chain performance.

Model-authored from 21 retrieved sources, then adversarially reviewed by an independent judge panel and held to a minimum-evidence floor before publication. Distinct from corpus-extracted content, which is labelled as such.

Pay across the ladder

Distribution Center / Warehouse — median with , by . Real canon data.

Pay figures are modeled estimates from our market equation — level-differentiated, with honest-wide bands. They refresh as new leveling evidence lands; treat per-role dollars as directional.

Demand — is the field growing, or just turning over?

SOC 11-0000 · national

Employment growth 2019–2024, BLS OEWSobserved

+61.3%Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers · United States

132,040 → 213,000 jobs

18,500 openings / year, split into:

replacement / exits 17,178

Growth — new jobs (7%)Exits — backfill (93%)

7% of hiring here is genuine expansion; the rest backfills people who move on.

Projected growth 2024–34 expanding: +6.1%
Growth share of hiring: 7%
Exit / retention pressure high: 93%
Openings / year: 18,500

Two quantities, kept apart: observed = employment growth differenced from two BLS OEWS vintages (what already happened); projected = BLS Employment Projections 2024–34, openings decomposed into growth + exits (growth derived from projected employment change). Neither is a pay figure.

Where this role sits — growth vs. pay

level M5 held

Demand axis is projected growth (not raw openings — that just measures churn). A curated, de-duplicated set of recognizable occupations held at this level; this role is highlighted.

Where it pays — by metro

OEWS metro median

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA$324k

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA$290k

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV$269k

Boulder, CO$265k

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA$265k

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH$254k

Lexington Park, MD$247k

Trenton-Princeton, NJ$246k

Pay only — metro-level demand isn't in public data (it needs job postings). National median $194k; the demand-cube initiative will add growth-by-metro.

What changes across the ladder

Level-distinction canon isn't available for the adjacent levels of this profile yet.

Level differentiators

What separates M5 (M5 — Senior Director) from the levels around it — this level only. Every word is real canon for this profile.

Scope: Multiple functions or a large department
Autonomy: Owns multi-year strategy for the area
Complexity: Org-level trade-offs and investment
Impact: Multi-function results
Decision rights: Owns investment and org design across functions
Leadership: Leads directors and managers

Full level-by-level matrix (side by side across the ladder) lives on the Ladder drill-down — not here.

Promotion

The next rung from M5 is M6.

Performance criteria for this profile render in the assessment kit →

People also watch

Nearest coordinate neighbors — same , same level. Each row's (confident / review / no match) comes from its — computed, not curated.

Profile	Key	Median	Δ structural
Chief Distribution Officer	jf_distribution_center_warehouse::E5	$351,571	confident0.06
Staff Packaging Engineer	jf_distribution_center_warehouse::P5	$142,824	confident0.06
Lead Warehouse Specialist	jf_distribution_center_warehouse::S5	$62,559	confident0.06
Senior Manager, Distribution Center Operations	jf_distribution_center_warehouse::M4	$173,021	confident0.06

Capability cluster

O*NET 11-3071

Core to this role. Click any element with an ⓘ for its O*NET definition. A job-specific capability model (SkillFrame) will sharpen this and add worked examples.

The Job Swatch

M5

jf_distribution_center_warehouse::M5

Director of Distribution Center Operations

Distribution Center / Warehouse

The swatch is JobFrame's core primitive: a hueset deterministically by the role's superfunction, the profileKey as its color code, the level ladder, and a content fingerprint. Two swatches that look alike are alike.

Because every role carries computable coordinates, similarity, leveling, and pricing become measurable instead of arguable— the whole point of "Pantone for jobs."

Structural

structural@1

Where it sits— position in the work taxonomy + level (weighted Gower, level > function > focus).

Track: M
Superfunction: manufacturing
Function: supply_chain
Family: distribution_center_warehouse
Universal level: 5 / 8

Content

content@2

What it's about— a fingerprint over the role's tasks & capabilities.

Two roles can sit far apart structurally yet be close in content — that gap is itself a signal.

3-state matching

How any two swatches compare — a real distance in coordinate space, resolved to a calibrated verdict (never a fake "94% match").

Demand / Forecast Planning · M5review0.17

Materials · M5review0.17

Purchasing / Procurement · M5review0.17

Transportation · M5review0.17

Editions — frozen & versioned

structural@1live

Released 2026-06-17

content@2live

Released 2026-07-28

pay@2live

Released 2026-07-02

semantic@1live

Released 2026-07-02

Coordinates belong to a frozen, versioned edition — a coordinate computed today still means the same thing next quarter. Re-fitting issues a new edition, so comparisons are never silently redefined.

How to read this profile

Every number here is traceable — to a named source, a stated method, and an as-of date — and each value is labeled by how we know it: observed from data, computed by a model, projected forward, or governed canon. Nothing is a black box, and nothing is invented to fill a gap.

Where every number comes from

What	Source & method	Edition	State
Median pay + range	JobFrame pay equation (function base × family multiplier × level × focus differential)	pay@2	computed
Pay across the ladder	Same equation applied at each universal level	pay@2	computed
Demand — growth & openings	BLS Employment Projections; openings decomposed into growth + exits	EP 2024–34	projected
Pay by metro	BLS OEWS metropolitan medians	OEWS 2024	observed
Level distinctions	JobFrame universal-level canon (scope · autonomy · complexity · impact · decision rights · leadership)	canon	canon
Capability cluster	O*NET Knowledge / Skills / Abilities	O*NET 11-3071	computed
Coordinates	JobFrame coordinate system — structural (weighted Gower) + content fingerprint	structural@1 · content@2 · pay@2 · semantic@1	computed
Related roles	Nearest neighbors in the structural coordinate space	structural@1	computed

The principles behind the numbers

Ranges, not false precision

Pay is P10 · median · P90, never a single misleading number.

Three honest states, never a fake %

Role matches resolve to confident / review / no-match — a calibrated verdict, not a made-up percentage.

Provenance on every value

Each number carries whether it's observed, computed, projected, or canon — so you always know how much to lean on it.

Gaps shown as gaps

When a figure isn't available at the grain you need, we say so — we don't fabricate a number to fill the cell.

Frozen, versioned editions

Pay and coordinate editions are pinned, so a comparison you make today still means the same thing next quarter.

Privacy by min-N

Any aggregate over people is suppressed below a minimum count, so no individual is identifiable.

Freshness

As of2026-07-30Editioncanon-v2@2.1.0-completeSourcecanon-v2 cell + salary-benchmark (model)