Chief of Staff
Compensation: €40k – €50k • No equity
Location: Remote with occasional in-person meetings Working Hours: Monday to Friday, 5-6 PM to 11 PM or midnight in local time. Employment Type: Initial 4-month consulting engagement with a potential for phased increase in responsibility.
About the Role We are a growing tech startup operating multiple platforms, including an innovative real estate product. While our operating roots are in Hong Kong, our company culture is truly international, reflecting a blend of Asian and Western business values. We are looking for a highly capable Founder’s Associate to act as the founder’s right hand in this fast-paced environment. An ideal candidate will grow into owning daily operations, HR compliance, legal coordination, and project management. Crucially, you will act as the founder's proxy, fiercely protecting the company’s best interests while mediating between various contractors.
Key Responsibilities Project Management & Engineering Alignment Attend technical and operational meetings alongside the founder, synthesizing complex ideas into actionable notes and structured tasks. Follow up with our distributed network of web developers, engineers, and designers to ensure product timelines and sprints stay on track.
HR Operations & Conflict Resolution Global Contract Management: Own the full contract lifecycle, ensuring all NDAs, MSAs, and IP assignments are correctly executed and securely filed before any new hires start. Cross-Cultural Team Alignment: We are a proudly borderless company anchored in Hong Kong, but with a distributed team spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The ideal candidate would thus be genuinely comfortable navigating between different communication styles and professional backgrounds. Building trust across these geographical boundaries is a core requirement, requiring strong interpersonal awareness and the ability to adapt to varying expectations and working styles. Diplomatic Problem Solving: Act as an operational bridge and product manager. When bottlenecks or disagreements arise between project owners, contractors, or the founder, you will diplomatically mediate and find practical solutions while ensuring the ultimate outcome strictly aligns with the company’s bottom line and best interests.
Legal Coordination & Scouting Act as the primary liaison between the founder and external legal counsel. Proactively scout and vet lawyers in Hong Kong, the US, the Netherlands and Ireland who possess a commercially pragmatic, startup-friendly mindset.
Requirements The Night-Owl Schedule: The founder operates on a late-night schedule. You will need to be available to work remotely. Strong English Diplomatic Enforcer: You can anticipate and resolve conflicts before they occur, combined with the pragmatism to know when to push back and enforce the founder’s directives. Tech-Savvy: Comfortable navigating modern startup tools, tracking engineering sprints, and operating the backend interfaces of web platforms. Familiarity with Slack, Jira, Trello, and Upwork as well as agile development terms (sprints, QA, front-end vs. back-end)
**Preferred Qualifications ** You do not need to check every box below, but candidates with one or more of these backgrounds will be heavily prioritized: Legal Background: A law degree (LLB) or experience working in legal operations/paralegal roles. HR Experience: Professional background in talent management, contracting, or dispute resolution.
Why Join Us? This is not a standard 9-to-5 corporate job. You will get a front-row seat to building and scaling multiple tech products while working directly alongside the founder. If you are a versatile operator who enjoys working autonomously and solving complex, multi-disciplinary problems, we want to talk to you.
Compensation: 40 to 60 Euros an hour, depending on experience. Perfect for a highly capable professional looking for a strategic, high-impact second income or a flexible, remote lifestyle.
Engagement Structure
Mutual Trial Period: We treat this initial window as a two-way street to ensure our working styles, expectations, and problem-solving approaches genuinely align before making a long-term commitment. Performance-Based Scaling: You will begin with a tightly focused scope of work. As you demonstrate reliable execution, autonomy, and a solid fit with the team's dynamics, we will gradually expand your core responsibilities. Controlled Capacity: To keep the trial focused and budgets predictable, this phase will operate under a strict maximum weekly hour cap. We will only review and increase this baseline time allocation once we are both completely confident that the working relationship is a definitive success. Month Commitment
First month ~3 hrs/week Onboarding, workflow review, and relationship building.
Second Month ~5 hrs/week Contract execution, project tracking, and joining the CEO & Lead Technical Consultant for performance reviews.
Third Month ~10 hrs/week Managing broader operations, resolving bottlenecks, and navigating difficult or stalled discussions.
Fourth Month ~15 hrs/week Operating independently as the founder’s trusted proxy.
Recruitment Process
Due to the high-trust nature of this role, our selection process involves:
Round 1: Execution & Fit (Includes Technical Advisors) The Basics: Background, motivation, and working style. Practical Scenarios: Real-world problem-solving (e.g., contractor delays, team disagreements).
Round 2: Founder Interview Strategic Judgment: Approach to business prioritization. Autonomy: How the candidate makes decisions and navigates ambiguity.
Final Step: Verification & Character Check References: Mandatory conversations with at least two previous professional contacts (ideally direct managers or close peers) to confirm the candidate is genuine and a positive addition to a team. Please note, all video interviews will be recorded for private company usage only. Verbal consent will be requested at the time of each interview.
Important Information Before You Apply
Please note that this opportunity is structured as an independent consulting engagement, not a traditional full-time salaried position. Our preferred engagement begins at approximately 3 hours per week and gradually increases over a four-month onboarding period allowing both parties to assess long-term fit before expanding responsibilities.
Some job platforms require an annual salary range even when advertising consulting opportunities. The salary range shown on this posting is therefore provided solely to satisfy the platform's requirements and should be viewed only as an approximate annualised equivalent. Compensation will ultimately be agreed as a consulting hourly rate or monthly retainer, based on the successful candidate's experience, qualifications, expertise, and the agreed scope of work.
We are also an early-stage, pre-product technology startup focused on building our operational foundations and preparing for launch. As such, we do not yet have a public company website. Shortlisted candidates will have the opportunity to learn more about our products, long-term vision, roadmap, and team throughout the interview process.