Founder’s Office Associate/Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff (Founder’s Office), Chief of Staff, Office of the Founder, Technical Program Manager [Founder’s Office]: on 14 October 2026, all four were Wellfound titles for roughly the same seat beside an Indian startup’s founder. Elsewhere the same job goes by Office of the CEO, Strategy Associate or Business Operations.
That loose naming is the first obstacle if you are two or three years into consulting, operations or sales, or finishing an MBA, and want to work next to the people making the calls. The second is that some of the seats that would suit you are never advertised. The sections below use real job descriptions to pin down the work, then show where the advertised roles sit, what to bring, and how to reach a founder who has not posted one.
What is a founders office role?
A founders office role is a generalist job that reports to a startup’s founder or CEO and works on whatever is most important that quarter, across teams. It is closer to an internal consultant with execution duties than to an executive assistant.
The job descriptions say it plainly. EasyEcom, hiring in Bangalore, calls it “a high-impact general management role for someone who enjoys solving complex business problems, working across multiple functions, and driving execution.” Spenza wants someone “to work closely with the founders in driving the company’s next 10x growth, setting strategies, and executing key initiatives.” Unetra’s listing says the Chief of Staff will “work directly with the Founder & CEO and help drive company-wide execution”.
Across the listings checked for this page, the work falls into five buckets:
- Strategy and special projects. Antino’s listing: “Drive high-priority strategic initiatives on behalf of the CEO from concept through execution.”
- Running the operating cadence. Antino again: “Manage the operating cadence of the CEO’s Office, including leadership reviews, OKR tracking, and action-item management.”
- Analysis for decisions. Spenza: “Provide analytical support to the founders, helping to assess opportunities, risks, and the potential impact of decisions.”
- Fundraising support. Antino lists “investor research and outreach preparation”, financial models and the data room.
- Being the bridge. Spenza: “Serve as a bridge between the founders and the broader team”.
Some founders office roles are technical. TrueFoundry’s sits inside its forward-deployed engineering team and works “closely with the founders and FDE leadership to drive strategic initiatives, customer engagements, and execution”. Enterpret’s is a Technical Program Manager role described as “an Extension of the Founder’s Office”.
Who hires for founders office roles?
Startups with enough going on that the founders cannot be in every room. In the sample below, Wellfound labels Spenza and TrueFoundry “Early Stage” and EasyEcom, Antino and Enterpret “Growth Stage”, and the work spans SaaS, AI infrastructure, ecommerce software and IT services.
Who decides is the more useful question. On several of these Wellfound listings the named hiring contact is the founder: Spenza’s is its Founder & CEO, and TrueFoundry’s, Enterpret’s and Unetra’s are each listed as Founder. That fits the role. A person who will sit in on board prep and read the company’s numbers is a person the founder wants to choose personally.
Founder writing points the same way. YC’s guide on first hires, written by Harj Taggar about engineers, recommends that founders focus “exclusively on personal network hiring” for the first three. Founders office hires are not engineers, but the logic carries: for a role this close to the founder, trust comes first, and the people who get considered are often people the founder already knows or has heard from.
Where are founders office jobs posted?
In India, mainly on Wellfound, under several titles at once. Wellfound has a Chief of Staff role page for India, which showed 23 results on 14 October 2026, and six for Bengaluru. Several of those are founders office roles under another name, and other founders office roles sit under operations or strategy titles, so search the city pages for “founder” as well.
On YC’s jobs pages for Bengaluru, Gurugram, Mumbai and New Delhi, we found no role titled founder’s office or Chief of Staff on 14 October 2026. The closest match on YC that day was on a company page: WarpBuild listed a Chief of Staff to the CEO, open to people in India (“IN / Remote (IN)”). A YC Work at a Startup profile costs nothing and puts you in front of YC founders when they open the next one.
The rest are posted on company careers pages and founders’ own LinkedIn posts, or not posted at all.
Which startups have founders office roles open?
These are the listings we opened on 14 October 2026; the set is partial, and hiring changes weekly: open each listing before you apply, and treat “reposted” listings with some care, since a standing post may no longer be read.
| Company | Title on the listing | Location | Experience shown | Pay on the listing | Posted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antino | Senior Associate - Founder’s office | Gurgaon, Bangalore Urban, in office | 2 years | ₹12L to ₹15L, no equity | 2 weeks ago |
| Unetra | Chief of Staff, Office of the Founder | Mumbai or remote (India) | 3 years | ₹16L to ₹22L, no equity | 3 weeks ago |
| TrueFoundry | Founder’s Office - FDE Team | Bengaluru | 3+ years (in the description) | Not given | 1 month ago |
| EasyEcom | Founder’s Office Associate/Chief of Staff | Bangalore Urban, in office | 1 year (2 to 5 in the description) | ₹7L to ₹10L, no equity | 2 months ago |
| Spenza | Chief of Staff (Founder’s Office) | Bangalore Urban, in office | 2 years | ₹15L to ₹25L, 0.1% to 0.2% | Reposted 2 months ago |
| Zime AI | People Success & Operations Lead: Founder’s Office | Gurgaon, Bangalore Urban | 4 years | ₹17L to ₹25L, 0.1% to 0.2% | Reposted 2 months ago |
| Enterpret | Technical Program Manager [Founder’s Office] | Bengaluru | 6+ years (in the description) | Not given | 3 months ago |
The range is the point. Under the same label, pay on these listings runs from ₹7L to ₹25L, and experience from one year to six. “Founders office” describes who you sit next to, not your level, so read each description for the actual work.
What should you show to get a founders office role?
Proof that you can take an unclear problem and finish it, plus judgment the founder can trust with sensitive information. The listings ask for this in different words.
- Cross-functional ownership. EasyEcom wants “High ownership and comfort with ambiguity.” TrueFoundry wants someone willing “to roll up your sleeves and work across functions rather than operate within a narrow job scope.”
- Analysis that leads to a decision. Several listings ask for strong Excel or Sheets, dashboards and business cases. Show one, not a list of tools.
- Writing. Board decks, investor updates and briefing notes are core work in several of these listings. A clear one-page memo is better evidence than a line on a CV.
- Discretion. Spenza asks for a “High level of discretion and confidentiality.”
- Background. Several listings mention consulting, startup operations, product or an MBA. EasyEcom and Spenza both name Tier 1 institutions. Treat that as a preference you can offset with evidence, not a gate, especially at smaller companies where the founder reads applications.
The strongest single thing you can bring is a short, specific piece of work about their company: a teardown of their onboarding, a pricing comparison against two competitors, or a list of five accounts they should be chasing and why. It shows the job before you have it.
How do you get into a founders office role?
- Pick the companies, not the title. Founders office work is only as good as the founder you sit next to. List 20 startups whose founders you would learn from, and whose market you understand.
- Check the timing. Startups that just raised a round are worth writing to first: the money usually comes with hiring plans, and the founder’s calendar fills with candidates, investors and customers. Spotting startups before they post roles lists where funding news appears.
- Apply where it is posted. Search Wellfound’s Chief of Staff and city pages, and apply to the listings that fit.
- Prepare one piece of work per company. One page, one problem, one recommendation.
- Write to the founder. A short email: why this company now, what you have done that maps to their problem, the one-page piece, and a small ask. The address hunt has its own guide: how to find a startup founder’s email.
- Send one or two follow-ups in that thread, days apart, each carrying a new fact or idea.
- Consider the internship route. Founders office internships are posted on Wellfound too; Chat360 listed a Founder’s Office Intern role in Mumbai on 14 October 2026. Ask up front what converts it to a full-time role.
Steps 2, 5 and 6 put you in front of the person choosing. They are also the slowest to keep up every week.
Where to start if you want to pitch the founder before a posting
Start with Backdoor. It is built for the part of this search that matters most for a founders office role: putting a specific note in front of the founder at a startup with fresh news, whether a raise, a launch or a hiring push.
How it covers steps 2, 5 and 6:
- Finding the moment. A raise, a launch or a new hiring push is what puts a startup in its morning picks, which is the timing step 2 asks you to watch.
- The note. It locates the founder’s address and drafts the case for you at that company. Nothing goes out until you approve it, which matters for this role: the one-page piece and your own judgment go in before it sends.
- The follow-up. The note you approved goes from your Gmail; Backdoor keeps any follow-ups in that thread and texts you when the founder writes back.
Two free parts help even if you never pay. Backdoor says its free hiring list spans 2,000+ people with a say in hiring at 320+ companies, mostly startups in India, founders and CXOs among them: enough for your first handwritten notes. Its partner intros cost nothing too. If a partner startup is hiring for your kind of profile, Backdoor puts you in touch with its founder.
Active outreach is paid; in India a 7-day pass costs ₹999 once. Its site aims it at candidates for pre-seed to Series C startups.
If you want posted Chief of Staff roles with pay ranges
If you want to see posted roles with pay ranges first, Wellfound is where most Indian founders office and Chief of Staff listings were on the day we checked, and applying is free for candidates. Its listings also show how quickly a company usually responds to applications. We found no mention of Wellfound following up for you, so any second message is yours to send.
If you want YC founders to find your profile
YC Work at a Startup lets YC founders find you through one profile. For founders office roles in India it carries few listings today; the closest match we found on 14 October 2026 was WarpBuild’s Chief of Staff to the CEO, open remotely in India. The profile takes a few minutes and stays visible to YC founders if they open one later.
| Tool | Emails founders | Sends from Gmail | Follow-ups | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backdoor | Finds founder emails and drafts notes Verified | Sends approved emails via your connected Gmail Verified | Follows up in the same thread until a reply Verified | Discovery, research, resume and partner-startup intros are free, plus a free hiring list (mostly startups in India); you pay only for active outreach Verified |
| Wellfound | Not publicly documented | Not publicly documented | Not publicly documented | Free for candidates (profile and applying) Verified |
| YC Work at a Startup | Not publicly documented | Not publicly documented | Not publicly documented | Free sign-up with one profile for YC startups Verified |
A founders office pitch to a Series A founder in Bengaluru
Context. A Bengaluru B2B software startup announced its Series A last week. It sells inventory software to D2C brands and has about 60 people. Founder: Karan.
Subject: Founder’s office, after your Series A
Hi Karan,
Congrats on the Series A. You mentioned in the announcement that you are expanding into quick-commerce brands this year.
I spent two years in strategy consulting and the last year in the founder’s office at a 30-person D2C brand, where I ran our move onto two quick-commerce platforms and rebuilt the weekly ops review. I put together a one-page look at where your onboarding could lose quick-commerce brands: [link].
If you’re planning a founder’s office hire this quarter or next, could we talk for 20 minutes?
Neha
Five days later, replying in the same thread.
Hi Karan, one addition: two of the brands on your customer page just listed on a new quick-commerce app this month. Happy to share how we handled the catalogue sync for the same move.
Neha
The pattern: a reason to write now, one relevant result, a piece of work they can open, and a small ask. The follow-up adds new information instead of nudging.
Adapt it by swapping in the company’s real news and your closest result, and keep the one-page note to a single problem.
A first week: a Wellfound shortlist and three one-page memos
Open Wellfound’s Chief of Staff page for India and your city’s page, and save every founders office listing that matches your background. Apply to the strongest three.
Then make a second list of ten startups that raised in the last two months and whose founders you would want to learn from. Write one page about a real problem for each of the top three, and send each founder a short note with it, by hand or through Backdoor. Put a follow-up date next to each name. If you are an engineer drawn to the same seat, founding engineer jobs in India covers the technical version of joining early.
How we chose
We compare tools on what their own public pages say, checked on the dates shown, and label every claim. How we compare tools.
FAQ
Founders office jobs
A founders office role works directly with a startup's founders on whatever matters most that quarter: strategy, operations, fundraising material, hiring or a new product line. In India they are mostly posted on Wellfound, under titles like Founder's Office Associate, Chief of Staff (Founder's Office) or Senior Associate - Founder's office; Wellfound's Chief of Staff page for India showed 23 results on 14 October 2026. Many are also filled without a posting, through people the founders know or have heard from.
How to get into founders office role
Show a record of owning messy, cross-functional work end to end, ideally at a startup, in consulting or in an operations role, and bring one piece of analysis about the company you are writing to. Apply to posted roles on Wellfound, and write a short note directly to the founder at startups that have just raised, since the founder is usually the person deciding. Wellfound also lists founders office internships, which can suit students and recent graduates.
Sources checked
Show 15 sources
- Chief of Staff Jobs in India - 2027 | Wellfound, checked
- Chief of Staff Jobs in Bengaluru, India - 2027 | Wellfound, checked
- Founder's Office Associate/Chief of Staff at EasyEcom | Wellfound, checked
- Chief of Staff (Founder's Office) at Spenza | Wellfound, checked
- Founder's Office - FDE Team at TrueFoundry | Wellfound, checked
- Senior Associate - Founder's office at Antino | Wellfound, checked
- Technical Program Manager [Founder's Office] at Enterpret | Wellfound, checked
- Chief of Staff, Office of the Founder at Unetra | Wellfound, checked
- People Success & Operations Lead: Founder's Office at Zime AI | Wellfound, checked
- Founder's Office Intern at Chat360 | Wellfound, checked
- Jobs at Y Combinator startups in Bengaluru | Y Combinator, checked
- WarpBuild | Y Combinator, checked
- How to Hire Your First Engineer (Harj Taggar, Y Combinator, 21 August 2018), checked
- Backdoor: AI job agent that emails startup founders for you, checked
- Backdoor free hiring list, checked