Chief Of Staff

Pyka•Alameda, CA

About The Position

Pyka is seeking a Chief of Staff to work directly with the CEO as the company scales the development, manufacturing, and deployment of its aircraft. The role helps the CEO delegate effectively and focus on decisions requiring their attention, while ensuring important work advances across the company. The Chief of Staff investigates cross-team issues or work without a clear owner, develops action plans with relevant leaders, and brings the CEO clear options and recommendations. The role owns the company’s OKR process, prepares decision memos and board materials, runs the weekly leads scrum, and leads time-bound special projects through handoff to a permanent owner. The position reports directly to the CEO and works closely with functional leaders. Success means decisions are made at the appropriate level, leaders feel empowered, commitments are carried through, and fewer issues require direct CEO involvement. This is explicitly not an administrative or calendar-management role. Pyka develops and manufactures autonomous electric aircraft and related technologies, including flight-control software, avionics, motors, motor controllers, batteries, and carbon-fiber composite airframes. Its aircraft serve cargo transport and crop protection customers across four continents, with regulatory approvals from the FAA. The company describes its aircraft as reducing CO2 emissions in their respective industries.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in business operations, strategy, program management, consulting, or a similar role, including hands-on execution within a growing company.
A track record of taking ambiguous problems from investigation through implementation and working across teams to deliver results.
Strong analytical skills and comfort working with operating data, spreadsheets, and financial information to assess options and tradeoffs.
Excellent writing and communication skills, including the ability to turn complex information into concise recommendations, decision memos, and presentations.
Ability to build trust with technical and nontechnical leaders, hold candid conversations, and influence outcomes without direct reporting authority.
Strong organization and follow-through, with sound judgment about priorities, when to resolve an issue independently, and when to involve the CEO.
Discretion, integrity, and good judgment when handling sensitive company, employee, and board information.
Continued availability of any required government authorization to access export-controlled technology, software, and other information.

Nice To Haves

Experience in aerospace, robotics, manufacturing, or another business developing and deploying complex hardware.
Experience at a growing, venture-backed company or in portfolio support at a VC fund, ideally working closely with a founder or executive team.
Experience managing OKR processes, facilitating leadership meetings, or preparing board materials.

Responsibilities

Work with the CEO to identify work and decisions to delegate, clarify intended outcomes, and establish owners, decision-making authority, and escalation criteria.
Investigate cross-team concerns by gathering data, collaborating with people closest to the work, and identifying root causes, constraints, and ownership gaps.
Develop options and action plans with relevant owners and report findings, recommendations, tradeoffs, and decisions needed to the CEO.
Own the company’s OKR process from planning and goal-setting through maintenance, progress reviews, reporting, and end-of-cycle assessment.
Help leaders translate company priorities into measurable commitments and maintain current records of objectives, key results, owners, deadlines, dependencies, and changes.
Follow up with owners, identify at-risk commitments, develop recovery plans with teams, report progress and unresolved tradeoffs to the CEO, and verify completion or explicit revision of commitments.
Run the weekly leads scrum, including collecting preliminary operations and issue-status data, preparing the agenda, and facilitating discussions.
Coordinate and draft board materials with the CEO, Finance, Legal, and other functional leaders; gather and verify inputs, synthesize progress and challenges, and manage preparation and review deadlines.
Join the CEO in investor discussions and due diligence, record action items and observations, contribute to due diligence questions, organize information from subject matter experts, and ensure prompt follow-through.
Lead time-bound projects addressing company priorities or gaps between teams, with defined scope, milestones, and completion criteria.
Work with functional experts to implement practical solutions across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, operations, and business teams.
Identify a permanent owner early, document key decisions and processes, and hand off projects so the work continues effectively.