Special Projects

Odyssey; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Odyssey in Palo Alto is seeking a senior leader to own strategic initiatives and operations, reporting to the CEO and Chief of Staff. You’ll shape priorities, build teams, and steer cross-functional efforts at a frontier AI company.

You’ll learn how technology, product, and business fit together, and play a central role in fundraising and investor conversations while translating messy problems into clear outcomes.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in strategy, ops, or related roles at tech companies.
• Hands-on with AI products or technologies and a strong landscape view.
• Able to translate messy problems into actionable plans.
• Clear, concise writing and cross-functional influence.
• Ability to balance strategic questions with practical details.

Responsibilities

• Own important projects from the initial question through execution.
• Explore new products, markets, and business models with a clear view of Odyssey's role.
• Build relationships with potential partners, investors, and others who could matter.
• Develop understanding of competitive landscape and emerging opportunities for leadership to act on.
• Prepare thoughtful materials for fundraises, board meetings, and investor conversations.
• Take ownership of priorities spanning multiple teams and ensure delivery.
• Serve as a thought partner to the CEO and Chief of Staff and sharpen questions.

Skills

Strategy & operations

AI product experience

Analytical thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Tools

Excel/Sheets

PowerPoint

Job description

Who we are

Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering general world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond.

Odyssey’s founders previously pioneered the most complex application of physical AI: self-driving cars. They’ve now brought together a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve, who have made significant contributions to language models (DeepMind Gemini), video models (DeepMind Veo), world models (Wayve GAIA), and autonomous systems (Tesla FSD).

Odyssey has raised significant venture capital from GV, Amazon, AMD, EQT, NVIDIA, Natural Capital, In-Q-Tel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Guillermo Rauch, Garry Tan, Kyle Vogt, and researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, MSL, Recursive, and Thinking Machines.

What we\'re looking for

You’ll work closely with Odyssey’s CEO and Chief of Staff on whatever matters most to the company at a given moment. Some projects will be strategic and externally visible. Others will be hands-on and operational. We’re looking for someone who enjoys making sense of messy problems, and who can be trusted to find the right people, develop a clear point of view, and see the work through. You’ll have a close-up view of what it takes to build a frontier AI company. You’ll learn how the technology, product, and business fit together, and you’ll have a real hand in where we go next.

What\'ll do

• Own important projects from the initial question through execution. You’ll define the problem, decide how to approach it, gather the right information, and keep the work moving.




• Explore new products, markets, and business models, developing a clear view of where Odyssey should play as the market for world models takes shape.




• Build relationships with potential partners, investors, and others who could become important to the company.




• Develop a strong understanding of the competitive landscape, relevant technologies, and emerging opportunities - and help the leadership team understand what they mean for Odyssey.




• Prepare clear, thoughtful materials for fundraises, board meetings, investor conversations, and other important company moments.




• Take ownership of priorities that span multiple teams, clarifying what needs to happen, bringing the right people together, and building lightweight operational systems to make sure the work gets done.




• Serve as a thought partner to the CEO and Chief of Staff, helping sharpen questions, pressure-test ideas, and keep the company focused on what matters most.

Who you are

• 7+ years of experience across strategy and operations, product, investing, consulting, strategic finance at a fast-growing technology company.




• Hands-on experience working with AI products or technologies and a strong understanding of the AI landscape.




• Able to take a difficult, loosely defined problem and run it down from question to outcome.




• Analytical and structured, with the judgment to make progress when information is incomplete.




• A clear, concise writer and communicator who builds trust across technical teams, executives, investors, customers, and partners.




• Low ego, highly dependable, and comfortable moving between major strategic questions and practical details.




• Quick to learn, energized by unfamiliar problems, and thoughtful about when to work independently or bring others in.