Business Operations

Cognition; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative AI lab in San Francisco seeks a high-trust generalist. You'll lead cross-functional projects, build relationships across functions, and operate autonomously to drive outcomes. The ideal candidate has 3-5 years of experience in high-growth tech environments, strong analytical skills, and a proactive mindset. If you're excited about solving challenging problems and being part of a dynamic team, this is the opportunity for you.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of experience in consulting, investment banking, or operations at a high-growth technology company.
• Strong analytical foundation.
• Ability to communicate credibly with both technical and non-technical teams.

Responsibilities

• Own cross-functional projects end-to-end, from scoping through execution.
• Identify gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities before they become obvious.
• Pull and analyze data to inform decisions and track progress.

Skills

Analytical rigor

Proactive ownership

Trust-building

Speed and precision

Low ego

Grit

Education

Technical degree (CS, engineering, math, physics)

Job description

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents.

We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer, and Windsurf, the AI-native IDE. Together, they represent our vision for collaborative AI teammates that enable engineers to focus on more interesting problems and empower teams to strive for more ambitious goals.

Our team is small and talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.

Building Devin and Windsurf is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us.

About the Role

You'll operate as a high-trust generalist, embedded in different parts of the business depending on where you're needed. Projects will vary: standing up new business lines, building analytics infrastructure alongside engineering, supporting corporate development efforts, or helping teams navigate critical transitions. Scope and ownership will be significant. You'll be expected to move fast, drive outcomes, and operate with high autonomy.

This is a role for someone who wants to be close to the hardest problems at a company moving very quickly. You'll work directly with leadership and build relationships across every function. The path from here leads to functional leadership for those who want it.

Core Responsibilities

• Own cross-functional projects end-to-end, from scoping through execution

• Build relationships across the organization and become a trusted operator that teams want to work with

• Identify gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities before they become obvious

• Drive results on tight timelines without sacrificing quality or detail

• Pull and analyze data to inform decisions and track progress

• Communicate clearly with stakeholders ranging from engineers to executives

• Pick up whatever needs doing, even when it's outside your comfort zone

What We Value

• Low ego. You care about outcomes, not credit or optics.

• Speed and precision. You move fast without dropping details.

• Trust-building. People want to work with you after the first interaction.

• Proactive ownership. You see problems and fix them without being asked.

• Analytical rigor. You're comfortable with data and use it to drive decisions.

• Grit. You don't quit when the work gets tedious or the problem gets hard.

Requirements

• 3-5 years of experience in consulting, investment banking, or operations at a high-growth technology company

• Demonstrated ability to operate autonomously and deliver results without close supervision

• Strong analytical foundation

• Ability to communicate credibly with both technical and non-technical teams

• Track record of exceptional performance in whatever you've pursued

• High tolerance for ambiguity, context-switching, and intensity

You might excel if you...

• Have a technical degree (CS, engineering, math, physics) even if you took a non-technical career path

• Worked as an early employee at a startup where you operated well beyond your job description

• Have been a Chief of Staff or BizOps lead at a scaling company

• Care deeply about building teams and culture, not just processes