Upfront Ventures
**Upfront Ventures** is seeking a Technical Chief of Staff to join our team in Santa Monica, CA to work closely with our partners, portfolio and the broader tech ecosystem, with a focus on SaaS tools serving developers and DevOps.
Founded in 1996 and one of the most active early-stage funds in Southern California, we are currently investing out of our seventh early-stage fund and early growth fund, with close to 100 active portfolio companies and growing, including companies like GOAT, Parachute Home, Bird, and Apeel Sciences (see our whole portfolio here).
The two year Chief of Staff/Investor program is designed to expose you to the full scope of a lead VC partner, from meeting entrepreneurs, sourcing investments, attending board meetings and supporting portfolio companies, to building the firm-wide platform. The startup landscape and the VC industry is evolving faster than ever and you will be at the forefront of those changes.
Upon completion of the program, you will have gained strong points of view on technology shifts and the inner workings of startup operations at different stages, and have developed a wide and deep network across entrepreneurs, executives and investors. Our alumni have joined portfolio companies in management positions, launched their own startups, or continued their investment careers at other leading funds.
Our ideal candidate has a deep passion, curiosity and clear point of view around solutions for some of the biggest pain points faced by developers in their daily work and what are the next generation of up and coming open source tools to solve these challenges.
You may currently be a business savvy backend engineer or an engineer focused on infrastructure within a tech company, you may have studied Computer Science in school but went down the product management career path or perhaps, you are a former engineer turned PM.
Regardless of your path, some of the must haves in this role are:
- Involvement with open source contributions and the broader tech ecosystem (sharing your work or thoughts publicly, i.e. GitHub, Medium, Stack Overflow; voracious reading of Hacker News, dev tool substacks and subreddits)
- Passion for networking and relationship building
- Curiosity and interest in investing (eg. avid consumer of Axios, StrictlyVC, Term Sheet or even angel investing on the side)
The key responsibilities for the Technical Chief of Staff, Investor include:
70% working with Kevin Zhang, Partner with 10+ years at Upfront
- Startup Sourcing and Diligence: Identifying and meeting with entrepreneurs, researching existing and new theses, analyzing business and financial models, and conducting references
- Deal Execution: Executing new and follow-on financings with the support of Kevin and the legal and finance teams at Upfront
- Portfolio Support: Attending board meetings and working with portfolio companies on key issues, including helping them with critical strategic and financial analyses, hiring, fundraising plans, etc.
- Community Engagement: Representing Upfront at local and relevant national events, hosting gatherings, bringing new entrepreneurs into the firm’s network, and generally keeping a pulse on the startup community
30% working with rest of the Upfront team on firm-wide initiatives
- Platform Building: Supporting the wider Upfront platform and brand including creating industry research and content to be shared internally and externally, assisting in putting on firm events such as the Upfront Summit, and helping support internal processes
Desired experiences and qualities:
- Technical degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering or related fields
- 3+ years of engineering experience working on a scaling product
- Ideally 2+ years of experience in product management or a business role
- Demonstrated strong quantitative and analytical skills
- Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
- Proactive and a self-starter
- High energy and a strong work ethic
- Have a point of view, innovative thinker
- Low ego, high EQ
- Local candidates only
Interested in applying?
If so, please fill out our short application form here and we will follow up with all qualified candidates to start the interview process.