Chief of Staff & Research Operations

Synhawk•San Francisco, CA

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Synhawk protects communication integrity in the AI age by building foundation models that verify the authenticity of audio, video, and identity. Specifically, we deliver infrastructure-level protections against AI-driven threats, including deepfakes (i.e., synthetic voices, manipulated video and images), adversarial agent campaigns, and other forms of AI-enabled deception. It is built to catch not just today's attacks but the ones that haven't been invented yet. We work directly with telco and banking partners, protecting the systems that real people rely on with their sensitive information. This shapes our research approach and priorities, allowing for a close iteration loop between the Labs team and the product teams. We're deployed with major telco customers, running our own GPU infrastructure, and operating under strict production requirements. Our work has an immediate, measurable impact on live systems defending critical infrastructure. Research is at the core of what we do and in addition to building great products, the Labs team also engages the research community at technical conferences, as well as through publications, technical blog posts, and social media. We're a small, highly technical, founder-led team. You'll play an integral part in keeping that team running smoothly as we scale! The Role Part Chief of Staff, part Technical Program Manager, part office lead - you'll be the operational backbone of our SF office and a right hand for our Chief Research Officer. You'll stay close enough to the research to keep track of what the team is working on, coordinate day-to-day logistics, and help shield their time for the research itself.

Requirements

Research-adjacent PM, chief of staff, or ops work experience
Experience at a lab, a technical startup, or supporting a technical executive directly
Comfortable with ambiguity
Biased toward action over process
Trustworthy with sensitive information
Eagerness to grow into the role
Willingness to learn about deepfakes

Responsibilities

Own day-to-day operations for the SF office: vendors, equipment, facilities, etc.
Manage onboarding logistics for new hires - equipment, access, first-day schedule
Keep operational admin running: compliance paperwork, subscriptions, insurance, and other essentials alongside our HR and PEO
Act as the Chief Scientist’s proxy when they're out, represent priorities, unblock people, make judgment calls on smaller decisions
Run the internal rhythm: weekly syncs, all-hands prep, decision tracking, and following up so things actually close out
Decide what needs the Chief Scientist's direct attention versus what you can handle or route elsewhere
Track project status across the team: what's blocked, what's shipping, what needs input from outside the team
Own the research blog end-to-end - working with researchers to turn results into posts, drafting or editing copy yourself
Use basic technical tools (Claude Code, light scripting, dashboards) to automate workflows and prepare PoCs