Innovation and Strategy Lead

sunday; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock Options

London office with hybrid work

Free Vacation Policy

Health Insurance

Job summary

sunday is recruiting an Innovation & Strategy Lead to bridge field realities with product development. You’ll spend significant time on-site with restaurants, clients, and staff, turning friction into actionable insights and delivering rapid solutions and improvements.

You’ll report to the CEO with a broad mandate across teams, with opportunities to lead Ops Excellence or a product line. This role suits an entrepreneurial, fast-moving individual ready to shape sunday’s growth.

Qualifications

• Entrepreneurial mindset and field-driven approach.
• Strong bias for action and ability to execute quickly.
• Excellent communication skills for interacting with CEOs and frontline staff.
• Comfortable working on-site with clients and staff in real-world settings.
• Ability to derive granular insights from field observations.
• Familiarity with applying AI tools to solve business problems.
• Up to 8 years of experience in fast-paced environments (top-tier consulting, growth startups, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Own field immersion in restaurants and work with clients and staff to understand adoption challenges.
• Track and prioritize field actions with a clear, up-to-date plan.
• Identify problems and ship solutions by coordinating across teams.
• Turn field observations into structured insights for product, ops, and commercial decisions.
• Keep the CEO informed on field dynamics, trends, and blockers.
• Iterate quickly, learn from failures, and push for progress over perfection.
• Drive field insights and travel across France, the UK, and the US.

Skills

Entrepreneurial mindset

Bias for action

Excellent communication

Field-facing / on-site

Analytical insights

AI fluency

8+ years experience in fast-paced env

Job description

About Us

sunday is building the fastest, simplest way to pay in restaurants. With a quick scan of a QR code, diners can pay, tip, and leave in about 10 seconds. We believe great products should feel obvious, not complicated, and we focus relentlessly on keeping things simple while earning trust from restaurants and guests at every interaction. Today, sunday powers payments in thousands of restaurants across the US, UK, and France, helping operators turn tables faster, increase tips, and unlock valuable insights. We push ourselves to go beyond what’s expected, building with ownership, moving fast, and scaling with ambition as we tackle our biggest growth opportunity in the US.

About the Role

As an Innovation & Strategy Lead at sunday, your ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between what happens in the field and how we build our product. This isn't a desk job: you'll be out there, close to restaurants, clients, and staff, turning real-world friction into actionable insights and shipping solutions fast.

You’ll report directly to the CEO, with a dotted line to the Chief of Staff, which means you’ll have access to the most senior levels of the company and the full mandate to make things happen across every team.

This role is a rare opportunity for a deeply entrepreneurial person who loves being in the field, hates bureaucracy, and wants to be a driving force behind how sunday evolves operationally. Whether you join as an end-of-studies intern or a full-time hire, you’ll own real problems from day one, and you’ll be expected to solve them. The best performers will have the opportunity to lead an Ops Excellence team or take ownership of a full Product line.

Join early, grow fast, and shape the journey!

Key Responsibilities

1. Own field immersion: Spend the majority of your time in restaurants, with clients and restaurant staff, building a ground-level understanding of adoption challenges (our share of wallet at restaurants) and real-world friction points.
2. Track and prioritize action: Maintain a clear, up-to-date view of all ongoing and pending field actions, noting what falls through the cracks and what should be prioritized.
3. Identify problems and ship solutions: Proactively spot operational issues and don't just flag them, design a plan and execute it, leveraging the right people and resources across the company you’ll have access to.
4. Turn proximity into knowledge: Convert what you observe in the field into structured insights that feed product, ops, and commercial decisions at the highest level.
5. Be the CEO's eyes and ears: Keep Victor informed on all relevant field dynamics, emerging trends, and blockers, make sure nothing important gets lost in translation.
6. Iterate fast, break things, innovate: Test ideas quickly, learn from what doesn't work, and never let perfect be the enemy of progress.
7. Drive field insights and travel across France, the UK, and the US!

About You

Must-haves:

• You are deeply entrepreneurial: you see a problem and your first instinct is to fix it, not report it.
• You have a relentless bias for action: you move fast, follow through, and get things done without waiting for perfect conditions.
• You are an exceptional communicator: you can synthesize complex, ambiguous situations into clear takeaways for a CEO or a waiter alike.
• You are field-oriented and thrive in client-facing environments: you are energized by being on-site, not behind a screen.
• You seek for granular insights: your first reflex is to dive deeper to understand.
• You leverage AI to the highest degree in the problems you solve.
• Up to 8 years of experience in fast-paced environments: Top tier consulting, High growth series A-C start-ups, Banking etc.

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience in project management or team management.
• A background in startups, operations-heavy roles, founding companies.
• Familiarity with the hospitality or restaurant industry.

What we Offer

• Competitive salary + Stock Options
• A great office in the heart of London with a balance of in-person and remote work
• Free Vacation Policy
• 100% Employer-Covered Health Insurance

sunday is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, ancestry, nationality, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, genetic information, or on any other basis prohibited by law (except where an attribute is a bona fide occupational qualification).