Head of Operations
About the Company
Our client is a seed-stage AI startup in San Francisco building an agentic geospatial intelligence engine that lets anyone quickly and cheaply answer any question about the physical world: a powerful search and reasoning layer over physical-world data. The company is at an early, high-momentum stage.
About the Role
The company is hiring its first Head of Operations to free up the founder for high-leverage, needle-moving work. This person will own two broad buckets: the traditional operational foundation (insurance, office, compliance, payroll, accounting, contracts, and legal) and the business-facing work (building talent pipelines, producing customer materials, and supporting fundraising decks). The right person is a trusted generalist who can absorb both without needing detailed direction, someone who can reason about the product independently and get things done with high reliability.
What You'll Own
- Own the full operational backbone: insurance, office management, compliance, payroll, accounting, contracts, and legal coordination
- Build and maintain talent pipelines and support recruiting operations as the team scales
- Produce customer-facing materials and one-pagers, synthesizing the product and use cases without detailed direction from the founder
- Support fundraising processes by creating decks, data rooms, and investor materials
- Design internal systems and processes from scratch as the company scales, setting the operational foundation for the next stage of growth
- Act as a trusted generalist who keeps everything running well so the founder can focus on high-leverage decisions
Requirements
Must-Have
- 2–5 years of experience in an operational, business operations, or closely adjacent role at a startup
- Has seen what executional excellence looks like at a later-stage startup (Series A, B, or C), with an understanding of strong internal systems and processes
- Extremely reliable, trustworthy, and not sloppy; operates as a mini owner rather than an employee clocking in
- Strong generalist communication skills: able to coordinate with vendors, candidates, customers, and internal stakeholders without a script
- Comfortable doing both foundational operational work (compliance, payroll, contracts) and higher-order business-facing tasks (customer materials, fundraising support) in the same week
- Thrives in ambiguity and figures things out independently without a detailed playbook
Nice-to-Have
- Background in investment banking, private equity, or management consulting with a desire to move into building at a startup
- MBA (Stanford GSB or equivalent) with a track record of execution, not just analysis
- Venture analyst or investor background, wanting to switch from evaluating startups to building one
- Sales background with strong operator instincts, particularly someone who has moved from closing into an operational or generalist role
- Product background with demonstrated operational range
- Competitive or athletic background (D1 athlete or equivalent) that signals the drive to grind in a fast-moving environment
Key Details
- Location: San Francisco, CA (in-person)
- Employment: Full-time
- Experience: 2–5 years
- Salary: $150,000 – $200,000 USD per year
- Equity: 0.5% – 0.75%
- Visa Sponsorship: Not available
Benefits & Perks
- 0.5% – 0.75% equity
- In-office meals included
Interview Process
- Intro screen with the founder
- Take-home case study
- Advisor interview
- Offer