Founders' Office — Special Projects (Technical)

BackOps•San Francisco, CA

21h

About The Position

BackOps is hiring a technical builder for its Founders' Office to rapidly turn ambitious ideas into working products, test them with customers, and provide leadership with clear technical assessments of which ideas merit investment and which companies may complement those initiatives. The role helps BackOps evaluate new revenue streams, products, and other high-potential ideas before committing substantial time and capital. This is an individual-contributor role reporting directly to CEO Sean McCarthy and working day to day with CTO Henry Ou and the Founders' Office team. The person will initially own the build behind each new initiative, including scoping, coding, demos, and written assessments. Within 6 to 12 months, the role is expected to own one or two initiatives end to end, from concept through launch, and lead technical diligence on acquisition targets. The work includes building AI-native prototypes, MVPs, customer and prospect demos, lightweight integrations, and internal tools; putting MVPs in users' hands and iterating based on customer discovery; and producing go/no-go recommendations. Successful initiatives may become production products or internal tools, with ownership of their roadmaps and customer outcomes. The role partners with Engineering to ensure validated work can scale, and may lead a small pod if an initiative becomes a standalone product. Success is measured through early progress: shipping and demoing a first prototype by day 30; putting two MVPs in users' hands, making go/no-go recommendations, and completing an initial technical diligence memo by day 60; and validating an MVP with paying or committed customers and drafting a diligence playbook by day 90. The work is intended to contribute to durable new revenue for BackOps.

Requirements

Strong full-stack engineering ability and experience shipping high-quality production software independently and quickly.
A zero-to-one track record as a founder, founding engineer, or early startup builder.
Builds AI-native by default and uses modern models and AI coding tools to move from idea to working product quickly.
Comfortable leading customer discovery, speaking directly with users, understanding their needs, and iterating on feedback.
Strong product judgment and ability to prioritize and cut scope to reach a useful answer quickly.
Ability to make sound build-versus-buy and architecture decisions under ambiguity and reason from first principles.
Ability to get oriented quickly in an unfamiliar codebase and identify risks a diligence reviewer would notice.
Clear, concise writing and ability to turn prototypes, customer conversations, and codebase reviews into executive recommendations.
Enjoys close collaboration and moving quickly with company leadership.
Takes ownership without waiting for direction and works urgently without compromising quality.

Nice To Haves

Founded a company, regardless of outcome.
Hands-on experience building with LLMs, agentic systems, or browser automation, ideally in production.
Experience working directly with enterprise customers, especially in supply chain or logistics.
Experience evaluating a codebase, engineering team, or company as part of an investment.
Experience taking a prototype through to a production product with paying customers.
Supply chain or logistics experience is useful; building speed, product judgment, and a zero-to-one track record are emphasized more.

Responsibilities

Scope, build, and demo working software prototypes based on early concepts from leadership.
Build AI-native prototypes using LLMs, agents, and browser automation; MVPs; strategic customer and prospect demos; lightweight integrations; and internal tools.
Make pragmatic decisions about what to build, reuse, or cut to test the core question quickly.
Put MVPs in users' hands, conduct customer discovery, and iterate based on user feedback.
Write clear go/no-go recommendations describing findings, scaling requirements, and whether an initiative merits further investment.
Own one or two successful initiatives end to end, including a product line or internal tool in production, its roadmap, and its customer outcomes.
Partner with Engineering to hand off work at production quality so validated products can scale without a rewrite.
Potentially lead a small pod if an initiative develops into a standalone product, while remaining hands-on.
Complete technical diligence on acquisition targets and draft diligence memos and playbooks.
Work with the CEO, CTO, and Founders' Office team to connect initiatives to durable revenue.