Chief of Staff
About this role
Chief of Staff
Location: San Francisco — on-site required
Reports to: CEO
About Matter
Matter Intelligence is building the future of vision AI: pairing a world-first sensor that sees molecular chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape with a Large World Model - the most powerful intelligence engine for the physical world. Our team has delivered technologies to Mars for NASA/JPL, designed sensors for U.S. Defense, and invented core algorithms for spectral and 3D imaging.
About the role
Matter is looking for a Chief of Staff to work directly with the CEO and drive the company’s most important strategic initiatives across engineering, commercial, finance, legal, and operations.
This is a high-trust, high-context operating role for someone who can move fluidly between strategy and execution. You will help the CEO translate company priorities into crisp operating plans, connect the right teams at the right moments, surface misalignment early, and ensure that important work does not stall between functions.
The ideal candidate is not looking for a purely administrative staff role. They are a strong operator who can take ambiguous company-level problems, structure them, drive them forward, and build durable systems so the company gets faster as it scales.
What you’ll own
Drive strategic initiatives directly for the CEO, from problem definition through execution, follow-through, and operating cadence
Connect engineering, commercial, finance, legal, and operations teams to keep priorities aligned and dependencies visible
Turn executive priorities into clear workstreams, owners, timelines, decision points, and communication rhythms
Identify where the company is blocked, misaligned, or under-resourced, and help resolve issues before they become bottlenecks
Support company planning, leadership meetings, board and investor materials, operating reviews, and cross-functional decision-making
Partner with commercial and product leaders to ensure customer commitments, product direction, delivery requirements, and business priorities stay connected
Partner with finance and legal on contracts, approvals, budgets, procurement, compliance, and other operating systems as the company scales
Build lightweight processes that improve execution without adding bureaucracy
Take on special projects where the company needs focused ownership and there is not yet a clear functional home
What success looks like
In the first 3–6 months
The CEO has a trusted operator who can independently drive priority initiatives across functions
Company priorities are clearer, better communicated, and more consistently followed through
Cross-functional projects have crisp owners, timelines, dependencies, and decision points
Leadership meetings, operating reviews, and executive follow-ups are tighter and more action-oriented
Engineering, commercial, finance, and legal teams have better visibility into how their work connects to company-level goals
In the first 12 months
Matter has a stronger operating cadence across leadership, planning, execution, and accountability
Strategic initiatives move faster because coordination, decision-making, and follow-through are no longer bottlenecks
The company has better systems for translating customer, product, financial, and legal inputs into aligned priorities
The CEO is able to spend more time on the highest-leverage company-building work because key operating workstreams are owned
Matter has a more scalable operating foundation for its next stage of growth
What we’re looking for
4+ years of experience in a high-performance operating environment such as an early-stage startup, strategy / business operations role, management consulting, investing, product operations, or a founder / founding-team role
Exceptional judgment, organization, and follow-through in ambiguous situations
Demonstrated ability to drive cross-functional work across technical, commercial, financial, legal, or operational stakeholders
Strong written and verbal communication; able to turn complexity into clear decisions, narratives, and operating plans
High ownership: willing to take responsibility for outcomes, not just coordination
Strong analytical ability and comfort working with financial, operational, customer, and product information
Low ego and high trustworthiness; able to operate with sensitive information and work closely with senior leaders
Bias to action, resourcefulness, and comfort building structure where none exists
Technical curiosity and the ability to earn credibility with engineers and scientists without needing to be the technical expert
Why this role matters
Matter is building a company at the intersection of frontier hardware, AI, physical-world data, and operational decision-making. That creates unusual coordination challenges: technical milestones, customer commitments, financing needs, legal constraints, and company priorities all have to move together.
This role exists to help the CEO and leadership team keep those priorities aligned - and to make sure the most important work gets done.
Company at a glance
Matter Intelligence is building frontier hardware sensors and AI systems that capture information about the physical world never captured before to train foundation models used by companies and countries. Its approach combines world-first sensors that capture multiple modalities—including chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape—with a Large World Model to advance geospatial AI and data about the physical world. The founding team comes largely from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, bringing deep expertise in planetary missions and advanced sensor systems, and the company employs approximately 35 full-time members, with its 20-person hardware team working on-site in El Segundo, California. In its first 13 months, Matter has closed close to $300 million in signed LOIs and has paid pilots with commercial public companies, four U.S. Government contracts, and sovereign nation partnerships in progress. Supported by a culture of self-management and high rigor, team members own significant areas of responsibility and deliver results autonomously.
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