What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Strategic Projects Lead position at David Joseph & Company?
Founding Strategic Projects Lead (Finance)
Palo Alto / Menlo Park, CA
An early-stage data company building premium, high-margin reinforcement-learning-model (RLM) datasets for frontier AI labs. Recently raised from a top-tier venture firm. The team is small (7–8 people), with each Strategic Projects Lead carrying significant personal ARR ownership and uncapped commission upside. Average contract value is :$2M.
Founded 2025
Own the end-to-end delivery of frontier AI lab finance projects. The work keeps your financial-modeling skills sharp — not on real-world transactions, but building RLM training data based on financial models (LBOs, comparables). The take-home is a difficult, unstructured Excel modeling exercise that filters heavily for fit.
What You'll Be Doing
Requirements
Palo Alto / Menlo Park, CA
- On-site
- Full-time Compensation: $130,000–$175,000 base uncapped OTE competitive equity
An early-stage data company building premium, high-margin reinforcement-learning-model (RLM) datasets for frontier AI labs. Recently raised from a top-tier venture firm. The team is small (7–8 people), with each Strategic Projects Lead carrying significant personal ARR ownership and uncapped commission upside. Average contract value is :$2M.
Founded 2025
- 7–8 people
- Industry: AI Tools
Own the end-to-end delivery of frontier AI lab finance projects. The work keeps your financial-modeling skills sharp — not on real-world transactions, but building RLM training data based on financial models (LBOs, comparables). The take-home is a difficult, unstructured Excel modeling exercise that filters heavily for fit.
What You'll Be Doing
- Quality control on task creation for Frontier AI Lab data projects
- Train other team members on task creation and quality standards
- Brainstorm product ideas to distribute products into the real world and to source proprietary data
- Negotiate partnerships with enterprises to access their data
- Carry $20–30M of personal ARR ownership across customer projects
Requirements
- 2-5 years IB or PE
- Excel modeling LBOs
- High grit, creative problem-solving
- Palo Alto / Menlo Park, 5 days in-person
- Weekends optional, team in office
- Top investment bank (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPM, Evercore, Centerview, Lazard, Moelis, comparable) or top PE firm (KKR, Blackstone, Apollo, Carlyle, comparable) with 2 years tenure
- Boutique PE firm with strong reputation and demonstrated impact
- Strong school strong bank combination
- Demonstrated grit: side projects, competitive academic achievements, athletics, or other high-intensity backgrounds
- Excitement about uncapped commission and willingness to grind for maximum upside
- No IB or PE experience. Hard exclude. Banking is non-negotiable.
- Bad bank bad school combination.
- 5 years experience positioning for senior or VP-level title. Hard exclude: not a fit for early-stage execution role.
- Doesn't care about money or wants 9-to-5 culture. The founder is direct: "if you don't care about money the role is probably not for you."
- Cannot or unwilling to work 5 days in-person at Palo Alto / Menlo Park office.
- Uncapped commission structure — uncommon in this space
- Extreme ownership: each Lead personally carries $20–30M of ARR
- Founding seat reporting directly to the Founder
- Lunch or dinner in office, health insurance, Bay Club or Equinox membership
- Location: Palo Alto / Menlo Park, CA
- Work policy: 5 days in person; weekends optional
- Compensation: $130,000–$175,000 base uncapped OTE competitive equity
- Visa sponsorship: None available
- Employment type: Full-time
Salary : $130,000 - $175,000