Founder's Associate

Imaginal Canada; Vaughan; Hybrid; Full time

Job description

Help build the campaign that puts Canada at the centre of the AI governance conversation.

A global mobilization demanding real liability for AI-caused harms, a global AI governance summit, and a national transition body.

We are at the moment before the moment. Two metres to go. With the tools we already have, we can extract enormous social good and build a beautiful world. If we keep barreling forward unregulated, we surge into catastrophic unintended consequences. The fork in the road is right now.

Imaginal Canada is the outside game. A petition, evidence pages, direct-to-MP letters, and coalition building, aimed at the uninformed and the skeptical, not the AI safety insiders. We argue with sourced data and short sentences. Prosecutorial calm. Apocaloptimism.

The founder has been in the weeds for a month. Every page, every endpoint, every email without help, and this does not scale. We\'re looking for people who will grow with the campaign, both with this project and then beyond, for other potential enterprises.

Open roles

Four roles open now. All are mission-rate roles at a lean non-profit, below market by design, for people who are here for the mission.

Role 01

Founder's Associate

Right hand to a solo founder running an AI governance campaign. Most of the week is admin and founder-time protection, inbox, scheduling, drafting, research, done at speed, at volume, without dropping quality. A smaller but real slice is learning Claude Code, navigating the repo, and running builds. The rest is whatever else the campaign needs: digital, physical, electronic, logistical, range over specialty. If you\'re capable, curious, and interested in growing, this is a launchpad, for this campaign and the adjacent ventures it leads into.

Comp

Hours

10-20/wk to start

Location

Vaughan, Ontario

Path

Upside

Potential profit share in adjacent ventures

What you\'ll do

• Take over email triage and calendar, inbox zero is the baseline
• Draft stakeholder correspondence, meeting prep, and briefing docs
• Learn Claude Code and the project repo well enough to run builds, make basic edits, submit PRs
• Pick up whatever else the campaign needs, research, errands, event logistics, physical setup

You\'ll thrive if

• Getting things done is your core skill, fast, at volume, with quality. You don\'t just schedule
• Detail-oriented, you catch typos, wrong dates, and inconsistencies before anyone else does
• Extremely organized, systems, not notes. Nothing slips through
• You\'re comfortable with CLI tools and willing to learn Claude Code
• You handle ambiguity without freezing, this is a campaign, not a corporation
• Range over specialty, admin, digital, physical, electronic, whatever the day brings
• Bonus: some volunteer or nonprofit work in your background
• Bonus: experience with advocacy, campaigns, or civic-tech

Role 02

Lead Engineer, Full-Stack & Agentic Workflows

Senior lead, the founder\'s second-in-command. Your job is velocity: a high volume of high-quality work, shipped fast, and the agentic AI workflows that compound the founder\'s output. You own the full build surface, frontend, backend, serverless, agents, and the discipline to finish what others wouldn\'t. We want a forward-deployed engineer: someone who builds close to the problem (not around it) and owns outcomes. An owner. Nonprofit base comp is modest to start, but upside is real for the right hire: potential profit share in adjacent ventures the founder is building beyond this campaign.

Comp

Hours

15-25/wk to start

Location

Vaughan, Ontario

Upside

Potential profit share in adjacent ventures

What you\'ll do

• Operate as the founder\'s right hand, set the standard for what ships, and finish what others wouldn\'t
• Design and deploy agentic AI workflows that compound the founder\'s output, not as novelty, as infrastructure
• Ship features end-to-end: UI, API, data, serverless workers, vanilla HTML/CSS/JS + Cloudflare Pages, no bundlers
• Own the backlog, triage, prioritize, ship, self-review across mobile, desktop, links, copy, and data accuracy
• Set the engineering standards future hires inherit, conventions, patterns, quality bar

You\'ll thrive if

• You are confidently in the top 1% of AI agentic workflow design, with shipped projects that prove it
• Software engineering background (3-7 years, frontend-heavy preferred)
• Entrepreneurial mindset, you see opportunities where others see tasks
• High-output finisher, speed, volume, and quality at the same time. 80% done is not done.
• Bonus: cross-industry track record, tools built across multiple domains, not just one vertical
• Bonus: some volunteer or nonprofit work in your background
• Bonus: exposure to PIPEDA or SOC 2 controls, you\'ve helped a team pass an audit, or at minimum know what they\'re for
• Bonus: experience with advocacy, campaigns, or civic-tech

Role 03

Motion Designer (Rive)

You make the argument move. Imaginal Canada runs on evidence: sourced stats, expert consensus, the plane parable. Evidence lands harder when it breathes. You will design and build interactive Rive animations that turn our pages into experiences people feel and share. Start on the web (the plane analogy, the imagine poem, data reveals) and grow into motion for a mobile app on the roadmap. This is a credibility-first campaign, so restraint matters as much as flourish: motion that clarifies, never decorates. The pay is a non-profit mission rate, below market by design. We are looking for someone genuinely pulled by the mission, and we make that trade honest with founding-creative status and real upside.

Comp

Hours

5-15/wk, flexible

Location

Path

Upside

Founding creative, potential profit share in adjacent ventures

What you\'ll do

• Design and build interactive Rive animations: state machines and runtime-driven UI, not just timeline loops
• Bring flagship pages to life, starting with the plane analogy and the imagine poem
• Turn dry, devastating data (lobbying spend, expert consensus, Canada 1 vs US 25) into screenshot-ready motion
• Own the motion language so the whole site feels intentional, in our register: prosecutorial calm, urgent but not hopeless
• Grow into motion for the mobile app: onboarding, micro-interactions, delight moments

You\'ll thrive if

• Real, demonstrable Rive skill, comfortable with state machines and interactivity (share files or links)
• Strong, distinctive visual taste, with a portfolio or reel that proves it
• Restraint: you know when motion clarifies and when it distracts
• Self-directed, you ship then iterate well on feedback
• Comfortable with web handoff (Rive runtime, vanilla HTML, CSS, JS, no frameworks)
• Bonus: a data-visualization or infographic sensibility
• Bonus: mobile or app UI motion experience
• Bonus: you care about responsible, human-centered AI

Role 04

AI Content Artist

You run the content engine. Imaginal Canada is the outside game: a mass movement that lives or dies on whether ordinary Canadians see, feel, and share the argument. You will turn our evidence into a steady stream of high-craft social content using Canva and the best AI image and video tools. This is not slop. The people we most want to reach are tired of engagement bait, and the AI safety world is sharp about it, so every piece is true, sourced, human-guided, and worth someone\'s attention. The AI tools are the unfair advantage. Taste and truth are the point. The pay is a non-profit mission rate, below market by design. We want someone here for the mission, not just the fee, and we back it with founding-creative status and real upside.

Comp

Hours

5-15/wk, flexible

Location

Path

Upside

Founding creative, potential profit share in adjacent ventures

What you\'ll do

• Build and run the social content engine: short-form video, motion graphics, carousels, and stills
• Use Canva plus AI image and video tools (Midjourney, Flux, ComfyUI, Runway, Kling, Veo, Luma) to ship fast and on-brand
• Make our stats screenshot-ready: one stat, one image, built to travel
• Stand up semi-automated, agentic content workflows over time (ideate, generate, assemble, caption, ship) with a human in the loop at every gate
• Scout new AI creative tooling and fold the best of it in

You\'ll thrive if

• A distinctive eye, with a portfolio or reel, ideally including AI-assisted work
• Fluency with AI image and/or video generation and with Canva for fast turnarounds
• Instinct for what makes something shareable without making it cheap
• Self-directed and fast: you ship volume without dropping craft
• Bonus: automation tinkering (n8n, Make, light scripting, API stitching)
• Bonus: a short-form or viral track record you can point to
• Bonus: copy and hook-writing instinct
• Bonus: you care about responsible, human-centered AI