Internship Touch Freight Jobs (NOW HIRING)

About Portless
Portless is a cross-border fulfillment company that ships directly from China to end customers with a domestic-like delivery experience. Direct Injection is our owned-carrier lane: we book our own air capacity, file our own customs entries under our own HTS classifications, and control every shipment through airport recovery, ground handling, and induction into last-mile delivery networks - all running on Portless systems.
The Role
Direct Injection is scaling, and today the lane is run entirely by our operations team in China. Once freight is wheels-down in the US, though, everything moves on US time: customs clearance, airport recovery, ground handling, and last-mile induction, across several vendors who need fast, clear answers. You will be our first dedicated US-side operations hire, owning that communication layer end to end.
This is a junior role with unusual exposure. You'll touch every step of the US leg of an international parcel network, work directly with operations leadership, and help write the playbooks for a lane that's growing quickly.
What You'll Do

• Track inbound flights and pre-alerts daily; confirm freight recovery timing and ULD breakdown with airport ground handling agents after arrival
• Coordinate with our US customs broker: ensure entry documentation (manifests, commercial invoices, HTS data) is complete and filed on time, monitor clearance status, and chase holds and exams through to release
• Manage the handoff to our US ground handler - recovery from the airport, sortation, and linehaul to last-mile induction points
• Confirm inductions with last-mile carriers, reconcile manifests against scans, and flag short-shipped or missing freight immediately
• Own exception management on the US leg: flight delays and rollovers, customs holds, damaged or missing pieces, mis-sorts - investigate, communicate, and drive to resolution
• Run a structured daily handover with our China-based operations team so nothing falls between China end-of-day and US morning
• Keep shipment milestones current in our systems and contribute to SLA and vendor performance reporting
• Turn recurring issues into documentation: customs-hold playbooks, recovery escalation paths, vendor contact trees

What We're Looking For

• 1-3 years in airfreight operations, freight forwarding (import/gateway desk), customs brokerage, or airline/ground-handler cargo operations - strong recent graduates with relevant internships considered
• Working knowledge of air cargo fundamentals: MAWB/HAWB, ULDs, freight recovery, and ideally the US customs entry flow (entry types, holds, exams)
• Exceptional written communication - most of this job is fast, precise, unambiguous emails and messages to vendors and teammates across time zones
• Highly organized: comfortable tracking many shipments across multiple parties at once without dropping threads
• Comfortable in spreadsheets and quick to learn internal systems and dashboards
• Self-directed and calm under time pressure - you'll be the first and only US ops person on this lane to start
• Genuine flexibility on hours: freight lands early mornings and on weekends, and our China team's day begins during the US evening; this role includes early-morning coverage and an on-call rotation

Nice to Have

• Mandarin proficiency (daily collaboration with our China operations team)
• Experience with ECCF/CFS environments and informal customs entries (e.g., Type 11)
• Familiarity with parcel induction into USPS or regional last-mile carriers
• Based near a major air gateway (e.g., LAX, ORD, JFK)

What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days

• Every inbound flight has a US-side owner: tracked, cleared, recovered, and inducted, with proactive status communication - vendors and the China team never have to ask twice
• Customs holds and airport exceptions resolve measurably faster because someone on US hours is pushing them
• The China-US daily handover is a running ritual with a consistent format
• The first playbooks (customs-hold response, recovery escalation) are documented and in use