Founder's Associate

About Vela

Vela is the AI scheduling assistant. We handle complex, multi-party meeting and interview scheduling at scale across email, SMS, and WhatsApp, so recruiters and teams can stop drowning in coordination and get back to the work that matters.

We're backed by YC, CRV, Angels from Open AI and other incredible investors, growing fast, and already trusted by leading executive search and staffing firms to run scheduling for their most important accounts. We're a small, high-output team, and we're looking for someone who wants to operate at the center of a company in its earliest, fastest-moving phase.

The Role

This is a true generalist role reporting directly to the founders. You'll be a core pillar of strength across the company: stepping in wherever you're needed most, owning high-impact projects end to end, and freeing up founder bandwidth so we can move faster. You'll also be a key face to our customers. If you're sharp, unusually capable, and you want a front-row seat to building a company, this is for you.

The role spans three areas:

What You'll Do

Strategic projects

• Own high-impact, cross-functional initiatives from start to finish
• Take on the urgent, undefined problems that don't yet have an owner
• Research, scope, and drive special projects that move the company forward
• Turn founder priorities into shipped outcomes

Customer onboarding and success

• Be a first point of contact for new customers as they come onto the platform
• Run onboarding: setup, training, and getting accounts to value quickly
• Keep customers happy, organized, and supported day to day
• Surface customer feedback and patterns back to the team

Founder leverage, Operations and Admin

• Act as a force multiplier for the founders, freeing up bandwidth wherever it matters most
• Keep the company's day-to-day running smoothly behind the scenes
• Own coordination, communications, and follow-ups so nothing falls through the cracks
• Anticipate what's needed before it's asked

Who You Are

• Exceptional written and spoken English. You'll be customer-facing with US-based enterprise clients, so polish and clarity are non-negotiable.
• Extremely organized and detail-oriented. You catch the things others miss and nothing slips.
• Trustworthy and discreet. You'll have access to sensitive information and operate close to the founders.
• A clear, proactive communicator. You flag issues early and don't wait to be asked.
• Scrappy and resourceful. You figure things out, move fast, and are comfortable with ambiguity.
• Customer-first instincts. You're warm, responsive, and make people feel taken care of.

Bonus Points

• Experience at a startup, especially supporting a founder or executive
• MBB or Similar background, MBA preferred
• Background in operations, customer success, or chief-of-staff-style work
• Comfort with tools like Slack, Notion, Gmail/Calendar, and basic spreadsheets
• A track record of owning projects independently and getting things done

Logistics and Compensation

• Location: Remote, India-based
• Hours: Strong overlap with US working hours required for customer calls and founder support. This will be 5PM to 5AM IST night shift role, six days a week .

Why This Role

This is a high-trust, high-growth seat. You'll start by owning the operational and customer foundation of the company, and as Vela scales, this role grows with it: more ownership, more responsibility, and a path toward leading operations or customer success as we build out the team. If you want to learn how a company gets built from the inside and grow fast doing it, we'd love to talk.