Founding Operator - Marketplace

EQL Tech • San Francisco, CA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

EQL Tech has been retained to recruit a Founding Marketplace Operations Lead to own the economics and partnerships of a high-growth technology startup's marketplace.
The company is building the financial rails to help families access new State education funds, known as ESAs or School Choice Funds. The $900B US Public Education budget is being opened up for parents to take control of their portion, which averages $7.5k per kid per year. Ambitious homeschool parents are using these funds to piece together their dream education experience, and helping them access these funds is Step 1 in the journey to build the next-gen education system.
The company has raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels. The team is an elite group of founders, engineers, and risk leaders with backgrounds at Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Stripe, Circle, Mercury, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX school, as well as the former Deputy Director of Arizona's ESA department. This is a highly committed, in-person company that works together in the office.
As the Founding Marketplace Operations Lead, you will help families with the discovery and navigation of their child’s education.

Requirements

• Operational Decisiveness: You’re fast, precise, and decisive. You can form a view with incomplete information, then update quickly.
• Commercial Negotiation Experience: You can negotiate with serious counterparts and hold your own with senior external partners without posturing.
• Data-Driven: You like to dig into the data and are comfortable analyzing real transactions data to decide what is the highest leverage work to do.
• Customer-Centric Integrity: You respect trust. ESA spending is high-stakes; families need clarity and confidence. You won’t chase margin at the expense of long-term trust in a community-driven ecosystem where word-of-mouth matters.
• On-the-Ground Mobility: You get on the plane. You know the value of in-person interactions and you’re doing the work on the ground that makes the metrics move.
• Location Requirements: You are based in, or willing to relocate to, San Francisco, CA or Phoenix, AZ and travel to visit customers.

Responsibilities

• Spend Analysis: Dig into transaction data to identify the categories, vendors, and purchase flows that matter most, focusing on frequency, dollars, approval friction, fraud/compliance risk, and margin opportunity.
• Category Strategy: Build a clear category roadmap to decide who to partner with and why, determining what is won next, what isn't worth it yet, and what requires product work before operations can scale.
• Vendor Relationships: Build and structure relationships ranging from small local education providers to national suppliers and enterprise-level vendors, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target.
• Commercial Negotiation: Negotiate and structure commercial agreements that improve margin and increase the company's leverage over time.
• Dual-Sided Marketplace Operations: Understand what parents want and what vendors need, turning those insights into repeatable processes.
• Volume Steering: Influence spend intelligently through product and operations - such as preferred vendors, better discovery, and faster approvals - to grow the take rate without degrading trust.

Benefits

• Founder-Level Equity: This will be a big commitment, and we’re aiming high; we compensate you well with equity.
• Massive Financial Backing: We’ve raised $16M from top-tier VCs and angels.
• Unmatched Talent Density: We’re an in-person company where you will work in the office alongside elite talent:
• Global Talent Support: If you do not have a visa, we can support you.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed