Operations

About the Role

We're looking for a high-energy generalist to join the team as the operational backbone of Vals AI. This is a hybrid role spanning office management, executive support to our founders, and junior operations work. If something needs to get done and there isn't an obvious owner, you'll own it.

This isn't a role for someone who wants a defined lane. You'll be the person who makes sure the office runs, the founders' calendars are tight, candidates have a great on-site experience, the team is fed, contracts get countersigned, vendors get paid, and the offsite actually happens. The work ranges from booking a flight in the next ten minutes to standing up a new operational process from scratch.

You'll also have a front-row seat to the AI industry as it unfolds. Vals works directly with the major foundation model labs and you'll be in contact with the researchers and operators building all of it.

You'll report directly to our Chief of Staff and work closely with the founders.

What you'll do

• Office & culture: Run our San Francisco office end to end — supplies, snacks, lunch and dinner orders, vendor management, mail, equipment, the small things that compound. Make the office a place people genuinely want to come to.
• Executive support: Own the founders' calendars, travel, and scheduling. Triage inbound, prep for meetings, and handle logistics for investor, customer, and partner interactions.
• Candidate experience: Coordinate interviews, manage candidate communication, and run on-sites. You'll be the first impression Vals makes on a lot of people we hope to hire.
• People ops: Onboard new hires (laptops, accounts, paperwork), manage Rippling/benefits/expense flows, and own the small but critical HR admin work.
• Events: Plan team offsites, dinners, customer events, and the occasional last-minute happy hour. We host a lot of people. You'll make those things actually feel good.
• Operations grab bag: Insurance renewals, legal admin (NDAs, contractor agreements), bookkeeping handoffs, conference logistics, social media support, and whatever else comes up.

Requirements

• 0–2 years of work experience. Recent grads strongly encouraged. We care more about who you are than where you've worked.
• Extremely high work ethic. You take ownership and don't wait to be told what to do.
• Smart and curious. You don't need to be technical, but you should be the kind of person who wants to understand how things work, including what we're building.
• Sociable and personable. You'll be the face of the company for guests, candidates, and new hires. People should leave interactions with you feeling good.
• Organized and detail-oriented. Things shouldn't fall through the cracks on your watch.
• Comfortable with ambiguity. Most days won't look like the day before, and there will rarely be a playbook.
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco. This is an in-person role, five days a week.

Nice to have

• A track record of leadership or sustained commitment in something demanding outside of school — varsity athletics, founding or running a campus organization, a serious creative or entrepreneurial pursuit, or anything else that selects for grit, accountability, and showing up.
• Prior internship or part-time experience at a startup, in hospitality, event planning, or consulting.
• Comfort with Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, Rippling, or willingness to learn fast.

What we offer

• Competitive salary. Range $80,000-$100,000 and meaningful ownership. Excellence is well rewarded.
• Relocation support
• Health, dental, and vision coverage
• Lunch and dinner provided. Free snacks/coffee/drinks
• Unlimited PTO
• 401K plan

About us

Vals AI is building the standard for evaluating how well large language models perform real-world tasks. Our core methodology originated from NLP evaluation research at Stanford. We've raised a $5M seed round from top institutional and angel investors, and our evaluations are used by major foundation model labs, enterprises, and research teams.

We are an in-person team in San Francisco. We're small, talent-dense, and expect everyone to show initiative to build where it's needed, not where it's asked. Intelligence and ownership matter more than pedigree.