title: Employee #7 at Venmo, chief of staff role at Checkout, first HR person at Cartesia
author: ben at next play
content_type: newsletter
publication: substack.com
published: 2026-02-03T15:40:20+00:00
source_url: gmail://19c2429d8520f016
word_count: 1751
early startups hiring, co-founder searches, roles at breakout startups
͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more
Employee #7 at Venmo, chief of staff role at Checkout, first HR person at Cartesia
Ben Lang
Feb 3
READ IN APP
✨ Hey there this is a free edition of next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey. Join our private Slack community here and access $1000s of dollars of product discounts here.
People are getting hired every week from Next Play. Ben Yang from Bevel Health just hired a Chief of Staff from someone he found in the community. Would recommend you reach out to companies and people you find interesting - you never know where it will lead.
Another thing you can do, that should help you out!, is join our Slack by subscribing here, where you’ll meet people with similar interests at different stages of their career journey (former founders, serial operators, angel investors, and more).
Join Friends of Next Play
Looking for a job? We ’re running a quick survey that should be really helpful to the community, you can fill it out here.
Co-founders and people to jam with:
Kunal was employee #7 at Venmo and sold his vertical SaaS company Thrive. He’s exploring vertical SaaS roll-ups with embedded finance and looking for a co-founder. Reach out: telosfund1@gmail.com.
Guillermo is a former founder who scaled a company from zero through acquisition. He’s exploring ventures at the intersection of AI platforms, marketplaces, and infrastructure. Reach out: guillermocampoamor@gmail.com.
Kenil was a product leader at Amazon and Zillow for 10+ years. He’s looking for a co-founder to work on AI-first consumer products. Reach out: kenil.vora@gmail.com.
Here’s a guide we wrote to finding a technical co-founder, and here’s a recent list we curated from our community of 61 people open to meeting a co-founder.
Hiring? Email hi@nextplay.so and we’ll send you our curated database of candidates looking to connect with great companies.
Early teams:
Karine from Variance is hiring a chief of staff and a BDR. They are building autonomous agents that detect threats and unveil risks in critical systems. Apply here. (SF)
Justin from Phoebe went from $0 to $1m in 6 months. They are hiring a biz ops person, a software engineer, and a founding salesperson. They are modernizing home healthcare infrastructure. Apply here. (NYC)
Eric from Superscript is backed by Mark Cuban and is hiring a VP of Engineering. Their mission is to create price transparency in healthcare. Apply here. (NYC)
Jack from Tie is hiring an AI/ML engineer. They are automating quality control for high-stakes financial documents. Reach out: jack@tieqc.io (NYC, Remote)
George from Monk is building an automated accounts receivable platform. They are hiring engineers and also a founding GTM person. Apply here. (NYC)
Ben from Lightning Rod Labs is building custom AI agents trained to predict your company’s targets. They are hiring a head of engineering and an AI/ML engineer. Apply here. (Remote, NYC)
Nitish from Kastle is building a voice AI company to modernize the experience of purchasing a home. They’ve reached 7 figures in revenue in just a few months and are hiring founding engineers, AEs, and customer success managers. Apply here. (SF)
Yasser from Chatbase is building an AI support platform. They are hiring a founding head of growth and founding salespeople. Apply here. (NYC)
Pranav from Paramark is hiring product people, GTM people, and solutions engineers. They are building software for marketers. Apply here. (SF)
Andrew from Taxwire is hiring an ops generalist. They are building a global sales tax platform. Apply here. (Remote, NYC)
Katie from Ondo Finance is hiring a head of business operations. They are building an institutional-grade platform to bring assets on-chain. Apply here. (Remote)
Mark from CNaught is hiring a founding product manager. They are building an ai-native platform for carbon management. Apply here. (SF)
Ran from Lettuce is hiring a product marketing lead. They are building an automated tax and accounting platform for solo business owners. Apply here. (Remote)
Catherine from Bandit Running is hiring a director of growth. Bandit is a technical apparel and running brand. Apply here. (NYC)
Richard from Harper is building a commercial insurance platform. They are hiring a recruiting lead. Apply here. (SF)
Here’s a list we made of 38 startups currently hiring with $5m to $10m raised.
Scaling startups:
Adrian from Foxglove is hiring for 33 roles across every department: growth, engineering, design, GTM, and more. They are building a platform for robotics teams to collect, analyze, and learn from data collection. Apply here. (SF, Austin, Seattle, Remote)
Harrison from Attention is hiring forward deployed engineers, growth engineers, and a designer. They are building a sales intelligence platform. Apply here. (NYC)
Konstantina from Flexport is hiring a senior sales manager who will work closely with Flexport’s C-Suite. Their mission is to make global commerce easy. Apply here. (SF)
Marc from Chalk is hiring an SDR and a growth marketing person. They are building a data platform for AI and ML. Apply here. (NYC, SF, LA)
Philip from Zapier is hiring AI transformation leads. They are building an AI automation platform. Apply here. (Remote)
Celine from Loyal is hiring an ops generalist to work directly with her (office of the CEO). They are building a clinical-stage veterinary medicine company developing longevity for dogs. Apply here. (SF)
Jose from Nelo is about to cross $2m in revenue per employee, and a $75m revenue run rate. They are building a modern alternative to credit cards, and are hiring finance people, risk people, and engineers. Apply here. (NYC, Mexico City)
Jennifer from Checkout.com is hiring a chief of staff. They are building a global payments network. Apply here. (London)
Dori from Simple Closure helped 2500+ founders shut down their businesses in 2025. They are hiring across partnerships, marketing, and people. Apply here. (NYC, LA)
Wen from Uber’s gifting team is hiring across product marketing, product management, and operations. Apply here. (SF)
Dylan from Span is building an ai-native developer intelligence platform. They are hiring an enterprise account executive. Apply here. (SF)
Ben from Monday.com is hiring an SEO/AIO team lead. Monday is an AI work platform. Apply here. (Tel Aviv)
Stan from Eleven Labs is hiring a forward deployed engineer, especially people who can speak French, German, or Spanish. They are building an AI voice platform that recently raised at a $3 billion+ valuation. Apply here. (Remote)
Lauren from April is hiring a chief of staff. They are building an embedded tax filing platform. Apply here. (NYC)
Eleanor from Cartesia is hiring their first HR person, along with PMs and salespeople. They are building a voice AI platform. Apply here. (SF)
Ryan from Mercury is hiring a head of product growth. They are building a modern banking platform, and recently raised at a $3.5 billion+ valuation. Apply here. (SF, NYC, Remote)
Shai from Brex is hiring 3 startup ambassadors. Brex was recently acquired by Capital One for $5 billion. Apply here. (SF, NYC)
The top 50 consumer AI startups according to Forerunner partner Kirsten Green.
Investing and other:
Samantha from Audacious Ventures is hiring a talent/community person. Reach out: samantha@audacious.co.
Garry, the President and CEO of YCombinator, is hiring software engineers. Apply here. (SF)
Canaan Partners is hiring a technology investment analyst. Apply here. (SF, NYC)
Matt from Alumni Ventures is hiring a venture associate. Apply here. (SF)
Featured resources and products:
We’re running a new experiment we’re calling “Group Chats.” These will be application-only WhatsApp groups based around specialized themes where people share ideas and give each other feedback. They are free to apply to. Here’s our first two:
The Talent Group Chat - Apply Here \- hosted by Caitlin Cooke (former Talent leader at Github, a16z, and more).
The GTM Engineering Group Chat - Apply Here \- hosted by Noah Adelstein (Rippling growth).
Actually useful ways to use AI to help you land a job at a startup: Practical advice of what to avoid and what to focus on.
Here’s a list we made of dozens of salespeople we find admirable.
Community roundup: Latest updates and events in Friends of Next Play.
Note:
Thanks for reading! If you have any notes, thoughts, or suggestions, please send us an email: hi@nextplay.so.
Would appreciate if you could upvote and share this edition if you liked it. Thanks so much!
You're currently a free subscriber to next play. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
Upgrade to paid
Share
Like