PE Portfolio Management/Ops - pros and cons

Hi all,

I'm buy-side recruiting right now (in London, FWIW) and I was wondering if someone can shed more light on PE portfolio ops roles. From what I understand, these positions offer way more in-depth interaction with the portfolio, understanding the various aspects of the businesses and allow you to go into the fine details of what makes those businesses hum along.

From my understanding, investment teams at PE shops take a surface-level approach to everything operational at a company, or "black-box" it to make it easier for themselves to understand how it translates to the financial metrics. Alright, the finance team sent us access to 300 different EBITDA bridges cut by the smallest division. Do I understand how the bread-and-butter SKUs are made? Which alloys go into making our top-selling component? Can we source them cheaper? What drives their price? Can I call a guy in Vietnam, fly out there and try to negotiate a year's worth of supply?

My drive to find a role like this is very much shaped by my long-term career plan, which is to either start a small manufacturing business or acquire one (have already secured some financing and have a plan in place here) in 5-7 years. I feel like this type of role would support me perfectly in this and give me a leg-up from the beginning - I know doing is the best learning, and it'll still be a lot of fumbling in the dark when I get to it, but knowing how to approach at least some aspects of the day-to-day would (I think at least) help me out at least a little 

Thoughts on the above?