Founders Associate

Instant Teams; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary + equity

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Flexible 18 days PTO + 5 sick days

Travel to field test events

Lunches and office snacks

E-bike / scooter stipend

Direct access to leadership

Job summary

Aurelius Systems, a defense tech startup, is seeking a Founder's Associate to work directly with the founders and leadership. You’ll own systems and coordination to accelerate the company, bringing structure to ambiguity and closing loops quickly.

The role extends beyond calendar tasks into internal tooling, documentation, vendor management, and cross-functional work that moves the company forward. Initially you’ll cover for others, but over 6–12 months the roles diverge as we scale.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years in a founder’s associate, business operations, chief of staff-adjacent, consulting, banking, or high-output generalist role.
• Exceptional organizational horsepower with ability to manage many threads.
• Strong judgment and ability to turn vague problems into plans.
• Startup mindset favoring practical solutions over enterprise tools.
• Direct, trusted communicator across teams and leadership.
• Proactive, loops-closing problem solver who works well in ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Own executive and team scheduling, calendaring, and coordination for the CEO and CTO.
• Arrange travel, hotels, demos, off-sites, and visits.
• Administer internal tooling and SaaS access; manage provisioning and renewals.
• Coordinate vendor and office activities including contracts and follow-ups.
• Create and maintain internal documentation and knowledge bases.
• Coordinate site visits, NDA docs, and onboarding logistics as we scale.
• Handle special projects and cross-functional execution with ownership.

Skills

Executive coordination

Cross-functional teamwork

Project management

Vendor management

Ambiguity management

Proactive problem solving

Clear communication

Education

No degree required

Tools

SaaS administration

Job description

Who We Are:

Aurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones.

We’re a small team of engineers, former US military operators, and subject matter experts scaling America’s directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system.

Our namesake isn’t an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn’t wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing. That’s how we operate, small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable.

In addition to our San Francisco lab, we’ve opened a Detroit manufacturing hub and we field test weekly on our own 400‑acre private range.

The Role and Impact:

We need a Founder's Associate to work directly alongside our founders and leadership team, owning the systems and coordination that make the whole company move faster. You’ll bring structure to ambiguity, close loops quickly, and become the person everyone trusts to just handle it.

This is not a pure Executive Assistant role. It includes scheduling and travel, but it goes well beyond calendaring into internal tools, documentation, vendor management, office coordination, and the high-priority cross‑functional work that doesn’t sit neatly with any one team.

Where our Operations Specialist owns the hardware floor and physical operations, you own the software, systems, and operating rhythm of the company. Early on you’ll cover for each other; over the next 6–12 months the roles diverge as we scale.

What You’ll Own:

• Executive and team scheduling, calendaring, and meeting coordination across the organization, including for the CEO and CTO

• Travel and hotel booking for the team and the logistics behind demos, off‑sites, and visits

• Internal tooling and SaaS administration, including provisioning, renewals, and access

• Vendor and office coordination on the business side: contracts, renewals, follow‑ups

• Internal documentation and knowledge bases that stay current and findable

• Visitor coordination on the admin side, including NDA documentation and scheduling for site visits

• Office transition and onboarding logistics as we scale into the new space

• Special projects and cross‑functional execution, and the messy, high‑priority things that need an owner

What We’re Looking For:

• 2–5 years in a founder’s associate, business operations, chief of staff‑adjacent, consulting, banking, or high‑output generalist role. Military S‑1, adjutant, or admin backgrounds welcome.

• Exceptional organizational horsepower: comfortable holding many threads at once and bringing structure to ambiguity.

• Strong judgment. You can take a vague problem and turn it into a plan without being handed one.

• Startup mindset: bias toward the simple thing that works today over the enterprise tool that deploys next quarter.

• Direct, clear, trusted communicator who works cleanly across teams and with leadership.

• Proactive problem‑solver who closes loops without being chased.

• Comfortable with ambiguity in an early‑stage company still figuring out its processes.

Where you probably come from: A founder’s associate or BizOps seat at an early‑stage startup, consulting or banking where you learned to structure problems fast, or a military admin or personnel role where you ran the unit’s systems and kept everything tight.

We want to talk if: You’re the person everyone already comes to when they need something solved, scheduled, or figured out. You see a broken process and fix it instead of filing a ticket. When a founder calls at 10pm because something urgent came up, you want to be the one who answers.

Not a fit if: You want a pure EA or calendar‑only role, you’re looking for hardware or facilities work (that’s our Operations Specialist), you default to "what software should we buy" before "what can I build in an hour," or you wait for written process before you’ll act.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience at a startup or high‑growth tech company

• Familiarity with project management tools

• Veteran with military admin, personnel, or S‑1 background

• Experience administering SaaS stacks and access controls

Education:

No degree required. Proof matters here.

How You Operate:

• Extreme bias for action. You’d rather solve it now than schedule a meeting about it.

• You handle problems before they hit anyone’s inbox.

• Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment.

• Clear communicator across the team, leadership, and vendors.

• Self‑directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told.

Why Join Aurelius Systems?

• Build more in 1 month than most people build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work makes the whole team faster.

• Work directly with the founders. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and the people running the company.

• Work on a problem that actually matters. Small, cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer with infinite magazine, near‑zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.

• Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.

How We Work:

We work Monday through Friday, 9 to 6, most Saturdays, and some evenings, although not constant. Supporting the whole company across engineering, operations, and leadership is the core of this role. We don’t manufacture intensity for show; the pace is real because the work is real.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary + equity

• United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage

• Flexible 18 days PTO + 5 sick days

• Travel to field test events and range days

• Covered daily lunches and office snacks + drinks

• E‑bike / scooter stipend (Up to $500)

• Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work

Export Control Notice:

This role requires access to export‑controlled information or items that require "U.S. Person" status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a "U.S. Person": (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).