Chief of Staff, CEO

DepthFirst

$150K — $200K *
Business Services
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years in strategy consulting, banking/PE, or a scaling startup (GM, biz ops, or functional lead)
  • Bachelor's Degree from a top university
  • Direct startup experience strongly preferred
  • Comfortable navigating ambiguity and establishing credibility with peers
  • Ability to communicate effectively across Engineering, Finance, and GTM teams
  • Proven track record of solving unstructured problems independently
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Able to switch seamlessly between strategic thinking and tactical execution
  • High judgment and discretion for handling sensitive information

Responsibilities

  • Serve as a trusted advisor and supporting extension of the CEO for strategic planning
  • Lead cross-functional projects outside traditional departmental boundaries
  • Manage the company’s operational cadence, including meetings and planning cycles
  • Create integrated views of product economics and business performance for alignment
  • Communicate effectively with leads, customers, board members, and investors as the CEO's representative

Benefits

  • Health, vision, and dental insurance
  • 401k retirement plan
  • Office lunches and dinners in the San Francisco office
  • Equity options for ownership stake
  • Opportunities for significant professional growth as the company expands
Full Job Description
About This Role

As Chief of Staff to the CEO, you'll operate at the center of the company working directly with the CEO and executive team as the company scales through one of the most important growth phases of the company. You'll act as a leverage point for the CEO, turning strategy into execution, running the initiatives that don't have a natural home in one function, owning the hardest cross-functional problems, driving the highest-stakes decisions, and ensuring leadership operates with clarity and speed.

Some days you'll be driving company-wide initiatives. Other days you'll be preparing board materials, leading strategic analyses, solving organizational bottlenecks, or jumping into customer conversations.

This is a high-trust, high-visibility role for someone who wants broad exposure to how a fast-growing AI security company is actually built and run.

You're excited about this role because you will...
  • Act as a trusted advisor and extension of the CEO, turning priorities into structured plans (OKRs, board materials, investor updates, decision memos), and proactively close gaps, see around corners, and resolve problems before they reach the CEO's desk
  • Lead high-priority, cross-functional projects that don't sit neatly in one department such as competitive analysis, AI automation efforts, and ad-hoc analyses
  • Own the company's operating cadence: leadership meetings, all-hands, planning cycles and keep cross-functional initiatives on track
  • Develop integrated views of product economics, market dynamics, and business performance that no single function owns, driving alignment and decision making that span Product, Eng, Finance, and GTM
  • Act as an extension of the CEO in communication with functional leads, customers, board members, and investors

Qualifications
  • 5+ years of experience in a mix of strategy consulting, banking/PE, or an operating role (GM, biz ops, or functional lead) at a scaling startup
  • Bachelor's Degree from a top university
  • Direct startup experience is strongly preferred
  • Comfort navigating ambiguity and building credibility with functional peers
  • Speaks the language of Eng, Finance, and GTM well enough that each trusts your judgment as an extension of their own
  • Demonstrated ability to work through unstructured problems and drive them to outcomes independently
  • Strong written and verbal communication
  • Ability to move fluidly between strategic thinking and tactical execution in the same day
  • High judgment and discretion, given regular access to sensitive company information

Bonus Points For
  • Experience at a high-growth startup or early-stage company
  • Hands-on experience with AI tools, agents, or automation to increase analytical and operational velocity
  • Familiarity with security, infrastructure, or developer tooling markets

What We Offer
  • Competitive salary with meaningful equity
  • Health, vision, and dental insurance
  • 401k
  • Office lunch and dinner (SF office)
  • Ownership and significant room to grow as the company scales


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