Strategy and Ops

**Squad** Strategy and Ops; $110-180k base + Equity; In-person in NY

**Squad's first product aggregates signals from hundreds of recruiters and uses AI to instantly match their candidates to roles**, giving companies unprecedented reach without the usual pain of managing external partners.

We give recruiters a business-in-a-box that lets them earn more while doing what they do best: building relationships and knowing their candidates deeply. In return, we get proprietary data. Our AI structures signal from real recruiter-candidate context that doesn't exist on LinkedIn or resumes. Every submission, every rejection, every hire feeds a **self-improving AI matchmaking engine**.

We believe the future of recruiting is human authenticity paired with AI efficiency. Great recruiters have a critical role to play, and Squad is built to empower them.

Long-term, Squad becomes the infrastructure layer for how talent meets opportunity.

**Why you should join us**

Squad is a generational opportunity to rethink how recruiting works, and our path to doing so is significantly de-risked. We have: - **Exponential growth: **We have product-market fit and are growing rapidly. Squad supports hundreds of candidates, recruiters, and employers every day. We've grown 10x in under a year with a 3-person team. - **AI-first business model.** Our approach is distinctly enabled by AI, and our business gets stronger as foundation models improve. We're building durability through cross-sided network effects that compound over time. Every submission, rejection, and hire feeds a self-improving matchmaking engine. - **Real ownership.** It’s still ‘day 0’. You'll shape what Squad looks like and how far we get. Your input will define our vision, product, team, and execution. What you build now becomes the foundation for everything that follows. - **Top tier investors: **We've raised over $5M from FJ Labs (Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox), Link Ventures (Mercor, Liquid AI), Golden Ventures (Faire, Boardy), and angels. - **Massive ceiling:** The recruiting industry is >$800B and broken. We're building the infrastructure layer for how talent meets opportunity. The scope is as big as you want it to be.

Market demand is pulling us forward. We're looking for people who are excited about high ownership, high velocity, and high impact.

There's an enormous amount to build - and the scope only gets bigger. You will never be bored.

**If we succeed**, every company finds the right people the moment they need them. Every person finds meaningful work without friction. And **the pace of innovation changes forever.**

**About the Role** As one of the first team members at Squad, you'll work directly with the founder (Iggy) to identify the most strategic problems to solve - and then own them end-to-end.

This isn't a role where you execute a predefined playbook. You'll help figure out what the highest priority problems are, come up with hypotheses on how to solve them, and drive toward outcomes across whatever vectors make sense - product, operations, growth, partnerships. The goal is the outcome, not the function.

One day you're automating marketplace operations with AI. The next, you're building the playbook for launching new verticals.

**Responsibilities** - Architecting AI workflows that make recruiters 10x more effective - and working with engineers to build them - Redesigning how companies engage - across UX, onboarding, pricing - to maximize response rates - Figuring out which vertical to launch next and how to win it - Creating incentive structures that drive recruiter quality and engagement - Scoping a new product line or partnership from scratch

**Required Skills** A. Experience in a high-intensity environment that required analytical rigor and outcome ownership (e.g., fast-growing startup, consulting, finance, a 0→1 business line at a high-performing org), and demonstrated ability to operate in high-ambiguity, low-structure startup environments B. Strong written and verbal communication and decisiveness that makes you effective in internal debates and external relationships C. Track record of moving quickly, finding shortcuts, and going to unreasonable lengths to deliver D. Comfort with ambiguity and fast-shifting priorities E. We're hiring anyone from 1 to 5 years of experience F. Strong analytical problem-solving skills with ability to drill into granular details, stress-test assumptions, and anticipate downstream consequences

**Logistical Info** - **Location:** New York, Flatiron office (in-person). Candidates must be fully committed to in-person work with no remote or hybrid exceptions. - **Compensation:** $110k - $180K + equity - **Other:** Health insurance; Unlimited PTO; Lunch daily and dinner after 7pm (usually fresh healthy food from Eataly)

**Ideal Background** - Backgrounds at Tier 1 consulting companies, specifically Bain, McKinsey and BCG; excited to join a startup. - Note: For people currently at McKinsey, Bain, or BCG, only target those who are working in the strategy core team and with any of the following titles: Business Analyst, Senior Business Analyst or Associate (i.e., joined pre-MBA) - Other Tier 2 include LEK, Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, OC&C - Experience at high performing marketplaces like Uber, Airbnb, and other early stage companies is also favorable, where they owned a P&L and demonstrated scrappy, high-velocity startup mindset - Experience in early-stage or high-growth teams where you owned an ambiguous problem end-to-end (e.g., launching a new city/vertical, standing up a 0→1 business line) - Looking for people who skew more analytical; degrees in engineering, math, physics, or computer science are a strong plus  - Combination of highly analytical background (MBB) + startup operator experience. - Super hands-on, not manager types (generally avoid classic MBA types and people running teams that don't want to get their hands dirty) - Big 4 (KPMG, EY, Deloitte) or Accenture backgrounds have been screened out as below the target-firm caliber bar (distinct from the Tier 1/Tier 2 list above) — client has explicitly called these 'not a target company' / 'a weak signal' / 'not top-tier' even when the rest of the profile looked reasonable.

**Target Companies** - Bain - BCG - McKinsey - Strategy& - Goldman Sachs - Lazard - Deutsche Bank - Blackstone - Flatiron Health - Oliver Wyman - DoorDash - Bridgewater - Uber - Amazon - Apollo - Google - KKR - Meta - TPG - Oscar Health - Bain Capital - a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) - Alvarez and Marsal - Sequoia - Kleiner Perkins - Palantir - Scale AI - Charlie Health - Garner Health - Anduril - Faire - Traba - Grow Therapy - Rula - Evercore - Centerview - Bessemer Venture Partners - NEA (New Enterprise Associates) - Accel - Affirm - Stripe - OC&C

**Example Candidates:** - [Shlok Patel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shlokdpatel) - [Tara P](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-p-9b61b5133/) - [Cindy Song](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindy-song/) **Green Flags** - Current or ex McKinsey, Bain, BCG - STEM degree (engineering, math, physics, CS) - Early promotion or high performer signals at MBB/IB - Already made the jump from MBB/IB to an early-stage team - Experience in a high-intensity, high-velocity environment (seed or Series A/B startup, high-growth tech company, 0→1 product team) - For people currently at McKinsey, only target those who are working in the strategy core team and with any of the following titles: Business Analyst, Senior Business Analyst or Associate - Looking for people who skew more analytical

**Red Flags** - Primary experience in large, slow-moving corporates without evidence of scrappy, build-from-scratch work - Candidates whose experience is exclusively in highly regulated, slow-moving sectors unless they can show scrappy, entrepreneurial projects within them - Joined MBB for first time after an MBA - Too many short stints - Too focused on corporate world (eg. multiple consulting experiences without high growth) - Candidates too focused on growth, sales, GTM — or narrowly specialized in a single operational function (e.g., payments/partner ops, account management, client solutions, sales ops) without demonstrated cross-disciplinary strategic thinking; repeatedly rejected as 'not analytical/strategic enough' despite strong execution within their niche.

**Interview Process** 1. Intro call 2. Analytical case study 3. Experience interview 4. Onsite day with ops case, product case and culture interview 5. Ref checks