Founder's Associate (Ops Generalist)

Founder's Associate (Ops Generalist)

Remote (US) · Austin preferred · SF office exists
Full-time · Operations / Founder's Office · 0–2 years (new grads welcome)
$70K – $90K base · 0.1% equity

Sanity Check

1. Remote is OK. We have an office in San Francisco and may open one in Austin. Austin is a plus if you're already there or want to be; SF is available if you prefer in-person. We are not requiring 5-days-a-week SF for this role.
2. We can sponsor a TN Visa if you are a Canadian citizen. We do not sponsor any other visa categories for this role.
3. If you are not legally authorized to work in the U.S. and not eligible for a TN, this isn't the role.
4. This is a do-er role, not a rotation through strategy decks. If you want a title, a manager ladder, and a narrowly defined scope — stop here.
5. Ideal profile: new grad or ~0–2 years out, scary-smart, high agency, thrives in chaos. Not looking for a scaled-corp "ops analyst" who needs a playbook handed to them.

About the Role

Truss is a ~dozen-person YC fintech building banking and payments for construction. We move real money. The company still runs on a small set of people who catch whatever is on fire and finish it.

We already have a Head of Operations. This role is different. We're hiring a Founder's Associate / ops generalist — someone who sits close to the founder and the operating core of the company and makes hard, ambiguous work disappear. One week that might be diligence follow-ups and a partner packet. The next it might be cleaning a broken internal process, running a hiring loop, digging into funnel metrics, drafting something customers will actually read, or owning a weird project nobody else has bandwidth for.

You are not joining to "learn how startups work" from the sidelines. You are joining to ship work that matters in week one. The job is to be useful at everything: figure it out, drive it to done, leave the system better than you found it.

If you've only ever succeeded inside highly structured programs with clear owners and weekly OKRs written for you, this will feel uncomfortable. If you are the person friends call when something messy needs fixing — keep reading.

What You'll Actually Do

• Be the net. When something important has no obvious owner, you pick it up. Tracking, chasing, deciding, closing. Partnerships die in inboxes; tickets die in backlogs; you don't let either happen on your watch.
• Multiply the founder and Head of Ops. Turn vague asks into finished artifacts: research, memos, trackers, checklists, outreach, scheduling that actually results in outcomes, not calendar spam. Anticipate the next three steps.
• Run real company ops work. Vendor follow-through, customer or partner admin, internal tooling hygiene, process docs that people actually use, light finance/people/ops support alongside the people who own those functions. Not pure EA work — operator work.
• Build systems from zero. Spreadsheets → lightweight tools → something the team can run without you. Prefer boring reliability over pretty process theater.
• Dig into numbers and write clearly. Funnel leaks, vendor costs, "why is this broken," competitive notes, internal briefs. You don't need to be a quant — you need to be rigorous and honest.
• Use AI as a default lever. Draft, summarize, structure, automate the grunt work. We expect you to move faster because of tools, not hide behind them.
• Wear whatever hat the week requires. Early-stage fintech is uneven. Some days are glamorous product energy. Most days are unglamorous follow-through. Both count.

What We're Looking For

• High agency is non-negotiable. You start things without being asked twice. You finish them. You update people before they chase you.
• New grad or early career (0–2 years) is fine — preferred, even — if you have proof you operate like an owner. Campus orgs, startups, research projects, side businesses, military, family business, competitive teams: something where outcomes depended on you.
• Evidence you can context-switch without dropping balls. Multiple workstreams, incomplete information, shifting priorities — and still deliver.
• Strong written communication. Short, specific, no fluff. You can turn a messy thread into a crisp next-action list.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and regulated-ish reality. We are a real fintech (accounts, payments, compliance surfaces). You don't need to already know BSA/AML cold, but you can't freeze when the work is detailed and consequential.
• Tooling fluency or fast ramp: Google Workspace, Notion/Linear-class tools, spreadsheets that don't embarrass you, modern AI tools daily.
• Bias to systems over heroics. You'll hero when needed; you'll also leave a checklist so it doesn't need a hero next time.
• Discretion. You'll see sensitive company, customer, and people information. That stays put.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. (or eligible for TN as a Canadian citizen). Remote OK within the U.S.; Austin is a plus.

This Is Not the Role If

• You want a narrow "strategy & ops" seat with no execution.
• You need a manager to define your week every Monday.
• Your strongest stories are coursework only, with no ownership outside a syllabus.
• You're optimizing for brand-name logos and a rotational program aesthetic.
• You flinch at unglamorous work (chasing a vendor, fixing a sheet, sitting in a messy process until it's clean).

Bonus Points

• You've worked at or interned at an early-stage startup (messy > prestigious)
• You've been a founder, co-founder, or the "do everything" early hire somewhere small
• Construction, fintech, payments, SMB, or other real-economy domain exposure
• You've run recruiting loops, events, partnerships, or customer ops end-to-end
• Quantitative coursework or proof you can analyze data without hand-holding
• You're in Austin (or want to be) and excited about a possible local footprint; or happy to spend time in the SF office when it helps
• You've used AI to build small internal tools, agents, or automations — not just chat prompts

What We Offer

• $70,000 – $90,000 base and 0.08% – 0.20% equity (early-company ownership; we can discuss cash vs. equity mix for the right person)
• Direct exposure to the founder and the real operating problems of a regulated fintech — not a shadow program
• A small, sharp team where your output is visible immediately
• Scope that grows as fast as you do: this role can become the spine of chief-of-staff / business ops / special projects as the company scales
• Remote-friendly setup; SF office today; possible Austin office
• The boring stuff: medical/dental/vision, 401(k), reasonable PTO, equipment, the usual

How to Apply

Send us:

1. Your resume and LinkedIn.
2. A short note — half a page is plenty — covering:
   • the messiest thing you've owned end-to-end (what it was, what you did, what changed)
   • a time you operated without a playbook
   • why Truss / why this kind of role (be specific — generic "passionate about fintech" will not help you)
3. Optional but high signal: a work sample (tracker, memo, analysis, side-project writeup, automation). Redact anything confidential.

If your application reads like it was written by ChatGPT to sound impressive, we'll know. Be specific. Name the work.

About the Interview

• Short founder screen (fit, agency, communication)
• Working session on a real, lightweight ops / prioritization / analysis problem — bring a clear brain, not a deck
• Conversation with Head of Ops and/or teammates you'd support day to day
• Reference check (someone who watched you own something messy)

About Truss

Truss is a YC-backed (S21), fast-growing fintech — an all-in-one banking and payment automation platform for construction businesses. With Truss, construction companies manage bill payments, receivables, and corporate cards in one place, and automate the billing cycle from invoicing through reconciliation.

We started by building a B2B payment platform in Canada called MazumaGo — and discovered most of our customers were construction companies. We took what we learned and built a U.S. banking and payments engine purpose-built for SMB construction, with a built-in network effect. Soft-launched beta in 2023, fully launched in 2024, growing fast since.

Construction still runs on slow payments, paper checks, and fees that punish small businesses. We fix that with real accounts, instant ledgering, and money movement that has to be right. That's why operators who can actually finish hard work matter here.

A note from the founder: I'm a technical founder. We hired a Head of Ops so the company has a real operating backbone — and I still need another pair of high-agency hands on the unpredictable pile: special projects, follow-through, analysis, and the random critical path items that don't fit a neat job description. I want a sharp early-career generalist who makes problems smaller every week. Remote is fine. Austin is great if that's home. We have SF today and may build more presence in Austin. If you want maximum learning through maximum ownership, I'd love to talk.

Interview Process

• Short founder screen (fit, agency, communication)
• Working session on a real, lightweight ops / prioritization / analysis problem — bring a clear brain, not a deck
• Conversation with Head of Ops and/or teammates you'd support day to day
• Reference check (someone who watched you own something messy)