Founders' Office — Special Projects (Technical)

BackOps; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

BackOps is hiring a technical builder for the Founders' Office to turn bold ideas into working products, fast. You'll prototype new bets, put them in front of customers, and give leadership a sharp, honest technical read on which ideas are worth building.

This role is an individual contributor with leverage, reporting to the CEO and working with the CTO and Founders’ Office to own bets end to end in 6–12 months.

Qualifications

• Strong full‑stack engineering experience with production software.
• Founding engineer or early startup builder experience.
• Experience building AI-native tools with LLMs, agents, browser automation.
• Comfort with customer discovery and direct user feedback.
• Strong product judgment and ability to make build-vs-buy calls.
• Ability to work with leadership and move fast with high quality.
• Proven ability to translate prototypes into production products.

Responsibilities

• Turn ideas into working prototypes, fast, owning the build end-to-end.
• Put MVPs in front of customers and collect feedback for action.
• Take winning bets from concept to launch within the product and tooling roadmap.
• Collaborate with Engineering to ensure production quality and smooth handoffs.

Skills

Full-stack engineer

Production software

Customer discovery

Product judgment

Architecture decisions

Zero-to-one startup

Clear communication

AI-native development

Tools

LLMs

Agentic systems

Browser automation

Job description

About BackOps

BackOps is building the AI resolution layer for companies that make or move physical goods.

The physical economy still runs on a fragmented web of ERPs, WMSs, TMSs, carrier and vendor portals, email, spreadsheets, legacy systems, and the people who know how to hold all of it together. When something breaks, whether a shipment is delayed, an order changes, a claim needs to be filed, a document is missing, someone has to gather context across systems, determine what should happen next, take action, and make sure the problem is actually resolved.

BackOps automates that work.

Our platform, Relay, deploys AI operators that understand operational workflows, work across the systems our customers already use, take action, navigate exceptions, and carry work through to resolution. We aren't building another dashboard or copilot. We're building the execution layer that sits between systems and gets the work done.

We recently raised a $42M Series B led by Insight Partners, just six months after our Series A, and are scaling across some of the largest companies in logistics, manufacturing, retail, and other industries that power the physical world.

The opportunity ahead is much larger than any single workflow or vertical. We're building the infrastructure for AI to operate reliably inside the real world.

The Role

We're hiring a technical builder for the Founders' Office to turn our boldest ideas into working products, fast. You'll prototype new bets, put them in front of customers, and give leadership a sharp, honest technical read on which ideas are worth building and which companies may complement those initiatives.

As BackOps scales, we're pursuing new revenue streams beyond our core platform, through new products and other moonshot ideas. This role is how we test those ideas quickly and evaluate them rigorously, before we commit real time and capital.

This is an individual contributor role with unusual range and leverage. You'll report directly to our CEO, Sean McCarthy, and work day to day with our CTO, Henry Ou, and the rest of the Founders' Office team. Today, that means owning the build behind each new bet. Within 6 to 12 months, it means owning one or two bets end to end, from concept through launch, and leading technical diligence on acquisition targets.

What You'll Own

Turn ideas into working prototypes, fast

The Founders' Office generates more ideas than anyone can evaluate on a whiteboard. Your job is to find out which ones are real by building them.

You'll take early concepts from leadership and turn them into working software in days, not weeks. You'll own the build outright: scoping, code, demo, and the writeup that follows.

That may include:

• AI-native prototypes built on LLMs, agents, and browser automation
• MVPs that test a new product or workflow before we commit to building it into Relay
• Demo-ready builds for strategic customers and prospects
• Lightweight integrations with the ERPs, WMSs, TMSs, and portals our customers already rely on
• Internal tools that help the Founders' Office move faster

You'll make pragmatic calls about what to build, what to reuse, and what to cut, so every prototype answers its core question as quickly as possible.

Put MVPs in front of customers and make the call

A prototype that never meets a customer is just a demo.

You’ll get MVPs into users' hands, run customer discovery alongside the Founders' Office, and iterate quickly on what you learn. You'll be in the room, hearing directly what's working, what isn't, and what customers would actually pay for.

Every bet ends with a clear recommendation. You'll write the go or no-go memo: what we learned, what it would take to scale, and whether it's worth pursuing.

The goal isn't to ship as many prototypes as possible. It's to help BackOps make better bets, faster.

Take winning bets from concept to launch

Some bets will earn the right to keep going. When they do, you'll own them.

Within 6 to 12 months, we expect you to own one or two bets end to end: a product line or internal tool running in production, its roadmap, and the customer outcomes it drives.

You’ll partner closely with Engineering to hand off work at production quality, so what you prove out can scale without a rewrite. If a bet grows into a standalone product, you may lead a small pod to take it further while staying hands‑on.

Show measurable progress early

This role is built for momentum. Here’s what success looks like in your first 90 days:

• By day 30, you know Relay and the Founders' Office's top three bets, and you've shipped a first working prototype and demoed it to our CEO.
• By day 60, two MVPs are in users' hands with a clear go or no-go call on each, and you've completed your first technical diligence memo on a target or market.
• By day 90, one MVP is validated with paying or committed customers, and a diligence playbook is drafted so the next deal moves faster.

You’ll work with our CEO, CTO, and the Founders' Office team to connect each of these milestones to the outcome that matters most: new, durable revenue for BackOps.

What We're Looking For

You may be a strong fit if you:

• Are a strong full-stack engineer who has shipped production software solo, quickly, and at a high quality bar.
• Have a zero-to-one track record as a founder, founding engineer, or early startup builder.
• Build AI-native by default, using modern models and AI coding tools to move from idea to working product in days, not weeks.
• Are comfortable leading customer discovery: talking directly with users, understanding what they actually need, and iterating quickly on their feedback.
• Have strong product judgment, and know what to cut to get to a useful answer quickly.
• Can make sound build vs. buy and architecture decisions under ambiguity, and reason from first principles when there's no playbook.
• Can quickly get oriented in an unfamiliar codebase and spot the risks a careful diligence reviewer would catch.
• Write clearly and concisely. You can turn a prototype, a customer conversation, or a codebase review into a crisp recommendation for executives.
• Love partnering closely and moving fast together, and are energized by working directly alongside company leadership.
• Take ownership without waiting for direction, and move with urgency without compromising on quality.

Particularly Compelling

We'd be especially interested if you've:

• Founded a company, whatever the outcome.
• Built hands‑on with LLMs, agentic systems, or browser automation, ideally in production.
• Worked directly with enterprise customers, especially in supply chain or logistics.
• Evaluated a codebase, engineering team, or company as part of an investment.
• Taken something you prototyped all the way to a production product with real, paying customers.

Experience with supply chain or logistics is useful. However, building speed, product judgment, and a track record of taking ideas from zero to one matter more.

This Probably Isn't the Role for You If

• You prefer a clearly scoped engineering role with a defined roadmap and an established codebase.
• You need a fully formed spec before you start building.
• You're more interested in building than in finding out whether customers actually want what you've built.
• You're uncomfortable making a no-go call, or recommending we stop investing in something, including an idea you championed.
• You're uncomfortable about moving fast and holding a high quality bar as a trade‑off rather than a standard.
• You'd rather work heads‑down on your own than partner closely with leadership and customers.

Why BackOps

In the Founders' Office, you'll help write the roadmap for our biggest bets.

You’ll work directly with our founders on the questions that shape where BackOps goes next: which products to build, which customers to serve, and which investments to bring into the fold. Every prototype you ship and every memo you write feeds directly into those decisions.

That creates a rare combination of scope and leverage: AI-native building, customer discovery, product strategy, and M&A diligence, all in one seat.

BackOps is building the execution layer for the physical economy. This role is how we find the next big opportunity inside it, and move on it quickly.

That's the opportunity at BackOps.