Chief of Staff

spawn; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 125,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

SF-market salary

Job summary

Spawn in San Francisco seeks a generalist operations leader to own high-leverage, unsexy work that keeps the company functioning. You will report directly to the CEO and juggle onboarding, vendor management, payroll, contracts, scheduling, and more.

You are highly organized, discreet, and technically capable, able to draft investor updates, manage spreadsheets, and handle basic SQL if needed. Equity is meaningful in a fast-growing startup.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of operational experience in a startup or similar high-rigor environment.
• Ability to draft investor updates, vendor emails, and offer letters clearly and concisely.
• Extremely organized with a system to prevent slips and ensure accountability.

Responsibilities

• People ops & HR management including onboarding/offboarding, payroll, and records.
• Accounts payable & finance ops such as invoices, expenses, and board-ready books.
• Vendor management for software, infra, contractors and services.
• Legal coordination with outside counsel on contracts, NDAs, IP, and approvals.
• Logistics & scheduling for CEO calendar, interviews, travel, and offsides.
• Handle anything else that is on fire to keep the company running smoothly.

Skills

Operational experience

Excellent communication

Organizational skills

Discretion

Low ego

Tech-savvy

SQL basics

Startup experience

Gamer at heart

Tools

SQL

Job description

About Spawn

Spawn is a platform where anyone can create multiplayer games from words. You describe what you want, our AI companion Savi builds it with you, and seconds later you're playing it with friends. We're a small team (~10) building a custom game engine, a novel AI authoring system, and the runtime that ties them together. We've raised $10M and are heads-down shipping.

We're looking for the person who runs the company around the company — the operational spine that lets everyone else go fast.

The role

This is a generalist operating role reporting directly to the CEO. You will own the unsexy, high-leverage work that nobody else has time for and that the company falls apart without. On any given week you might be onboarding a new engineer in the morning, chasing down a vendor invoice at lunch, prepping a board doc in the afternoon, and coordinating with outside counsel on a contract in the evening.

If "I'll just handle it" is your default reflex, keep reading.

What you'll own

• People ops & HR. Onboarding and offboarding, benefits, payroll coordination, PTO, employee records, IACs and offer letters, the eternal task of making sure everyone has the equipment and access they need on day one.
• Accounts payable & finance ops. Invoices, expense reports, reimbursements, corporate cards, working with our bookkeeper and accountant, keeping the books clean enough that we never scramble before a board meeting.
• Vendor management. Software subscriptions, infrastructure providers, contractors, office services. Knowing what we pay for, why, and whether we still need it.
• Legal coordination. Working with outside counsel on contracts, NDAs, contractor agreements, IP assignments, and the assorted legal cleanup that accumulates at a young company.
• Logistics & scheduling. The CEO's calendar, team offsites, travel, candidate interview loops, investor meetings, the physical space.
• Whatever else is on fire. This role is defined by surface area, not scope.

Who you are

• You have 3+ years of operational experience at a startup, in consulting, in finance, or in a similar high-rigor environment. Title doesn't matter; track record does.
• You write clearly and concisely. You can draft an investor update, a vendor email, and an offer letter in the same hour and they all sound right.
• You are absurdly organized. Things do not fall through the cracks on your watch. If they do, you have a system that catches them next time.
• You are discreet. You will see compensation, fundraising, performance, and personal information. None of it leaves the room.
• You are low-ego and service-oriented. The reward for this role is leverage and trust, not credit.
• You are technical enough to learn new tools quickly and not afraid of spreadsheets, contracts, or basic SQL.
• Bonus: you've played and loved at least one deep simulation or sandbox game. You'll be working on one.

Why this role is good

• You'll work directly with the CEO every day and have visibility into every part of the company — engineering, fundraising, hiring, strategy, legal, finance.
• You'll build the operational foundation of a company that we believe is building something genuinely new. The systems you put in place will compound.
• The role grows with you. The first version is generalist execution. The second version, if you want it, is whatever you make it — Head of Ops, BizOps, People, or your own thing.
• Compensation is competitive: meaningful equity and an SF-market salary.

Compensation

The base pay range for this role is $125,000 – $225,000 per year.