Geared toward high-trust operators comfortable with cross-functional strategic execution, working in a high-performance startup environment in San Francisco with a senior leadership role requiring technical credibility and process-building.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from Matter Intelligence via Ashby
CHIEF OF STAFF
Location: San Francisco — on-site required
Reports to: CEO
ABOUT MATTER
Matter Intelligence is building the future of vision AI: pairing a world-first sensor that sees molecular chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape with a Large World Model - the most powerful intelligence engine for the physical world. Our team has delivered technologies to Mars for NASA/JPL, designed sensors for U.S. Defense, and invented core algorithms for spectral and 3D imaging.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Matter is looking for a Chief of Staff to work directly with the CEO and drive the company’s most important strategic initiatives across engineering, commercial, finance, legal, and operations.
This is a high-trust, high-context operating role for someone who can move fluidly between strategy and execution. You will help the CEO translate company priorities into crisp operating plans, connect the right teams at the right moments, surface misalignment early, and ensure that important work does not stall between functions.
The ideal candidate is not looking for a purely administrative staff role. They are a strong operator who can take ambiguous company-level problems, structure them, drive them forward, and build durable systems so the company gets faster as it scales.
WHAT YOU’LL OWN
- Drive strategic initiatives directly for the CEO, from problem definition through execution, follow-through, and operating cadence
- Connect engineering, commercial, finance, legal, and operations teams to keep priorities aligned and dependencies visible
- Turn executive priorities into clear workstreams, owners, timelines, decision points, and communication rhythms
- Identify where the company is blocked, misaligned, or under-resourced, and help resolve issues before they become bottlenecks
- Support company planning, leadership meetings, board and investor materials, operating reviews, and cross-functional decision-making
- Partner with commercial and product leaders to ensure customer commitments, product direction, delivery requirements, and business priorities stay connected
- Partner with finance and legal on contracts, approvals, budgets, procurement, compliance, and other operating systems as the company scales
- Build lightweight processes that improve execution without adding bureaucracy
- Take on special projects where the company needs focused ownership and there is not yet a clear functional home
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
IN THE FIRST 3–6 MONTHS
- The CEO has a trusted operator who can independently drive priority initiatives across functions
- Company priorities are clearer, better communicated, and more consistently followed through
- Cross-functional projects have crisp owners, timelines, dependencies, and decision points
- Leadership meetings, operating reviews, and executive follow-ups are tighter and more action-oriented
- Engineering, commercial, finance, and legal teams have better visibility into how their work connects to company-level goals
IN THE FIRST 12 MONTHS
- Matter has a stronger operating cadence across leadership, planning, execution, and accountability
- Strategic initiatives move faster because coordination, decision-making, and follow-through are no longer bottlenecks
- The company has better systems for translating customer, product, financial, and legal inputs into aligned priorities
- The CEO is able to spend more time on the highest-leverage company-building work because key operating workstreams are owned
- Matter has a more scalable operating foundation for its next stage of growth
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
- 4+ years of experience in a high-performance operating environment such as an early-stage startup, strategy / business operations role, management consulting, investing, product operations, or a founder / founding-team role
- Exceptional judgment, organization, and follow-through in ambiguous situations
- Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional work across technical, commercial, financial, legal, or operational stakeholders
- Strong written and verbal communication; able to turn complexity into clear decisions, narratives, and operating plans
- High ownership: willing to take responsibility for outcomes, not just coordination
- Strong analytical ability and comfort working with financial, operational, customer, and product information
- Low ego and high trustworthiness; able to operate with sensitive information and work closely with senior leaders
- Bias to action, resourcefulness, and comfort building structure where none exists
- Technical curiosity and the ability to earn credibility with engineers and scientists without needing to be the technical expert
WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS
Matter is building a company at the intersection of frontier hardware, AI, physical-world data, and operational decision-making. That creates unusual coordination challenges: technical milestones, customer commitments, financing needs, legal constraints, and company priorities all have to move together.
This role exists to help the CEO and leadership team keep those priorities aligned - and to make sure the most important work gets done.