Strategic Ops Lead, Cross-Functional AI Growth

River AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

River AI in Palo Alto, CA, is seeking a high-agency, versatile operations leader to tackle our most important organizational challenges across research, engineering, product, hardware, and go-to-market. You’ll move ideas to execution, removing friction and creating connectivity so information and decisions flow where needed.

As a trusted partner, you’ll structure ambiguity, build clear operating rhythms, and drive alignment across functions while leveraging AI tools to accelerate research,

Qualifications

• Significant experience in operations, strategy, program management, chief of staff, consulting, or a similarly high-ownership role.
• Experience operating in a fast-paced startup or high-growth technology environment.
• Exceptional problem-solving and judgment with the ability to quickly assess a situation and determine a practical path forward.
• Comfortable with significant ambiguity and able to create structure where none exists.
• Strong cross-functional instincts and the ability to build relationships and alignment across teams.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complexity into clear decisions and actions.
• High agency, strong ownership, and a bias toward action.
• Comfortable moving between strategic thinking and hands-on execution.
• Strong data fluency and technical curiosity.
• Strong fluency with modern AI technologies and tools, including LLMs, agents, and AI-powered productivity.
• Demonstrated ability to use AI effectively to accelerate research, analysis, decision-making, automation, and execution.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly across the founding on the company’s highest-priority problems and initiatives.
• Take ambiguity from “what’s going on?” to “here’s what we should do” to “here’s how we’ll make it happen.”
• Build connectivity across research, engineering, product, hardware, and go-to-market, legal, HR, finance, IT, and security, ensuring teams have the context and clarity needed to move quickly.
• Establish low-friction operating mechanisms that improve decision-making, communication, and execution as River scales.
• Serve as a trusted thought partner, bringing clear analysis, sound judgment, and actionable recommendations.
• Anticipate needs and connect dots across the organization and surface opportunities, risks, and dependencies that may not be visible within a single function.
• Leverage AI tools to research, analyze, synthesize, automate, and execute faster.
• Execute to drive important work forward.

Skills

Operations leadership

Strategy & planning

Program management

Cross-functional collaboration

Analytical thinking

Communication skills

Data fluency

AI tools familiarity

Job description

River AI in Palo Alto, CA, is seeking a high-agency, versatile operations leader to tackle our most important organizational challenges across research, engineering, product, hardware, and go-to-market. You’ll move ideas to execution, removing friction and creating connectivity so information and decisions flow where needed.

As a trusted partner, you’ll structure ambiguity, build clear operating rhythms, and drive alignment across functions while leveraging AI tools to accelerate research,