Vela

Who are we? We are a team of obsessive thinkers, builders, and doers from Harvard, CMU, UChicago, UPenn, GT, and more. We have published papers, own patents, built companies, and received international accolades. Most of all, we are a group of friends (some would say family) who work hard (9-9-6) to solve some of the most challenging problems faced by real people. What do we do? Vela’s mission is to completely remove the tedious human coordination starting with scheduling. We started with the most complex version of the problem faced by searchers, recruiters, and staffers by creating systems that are able to solve situations like ‘John the recruiter will gladly take a call with CEO Jill at 7:00 AM in the morning, but not with their colleague’. How does one intelligently make decisions as such based on the context that changes person to person, industry to industry? ← This is just one of the many problems we tackle everyday. Who are you? Ultra intellectually curious (you are active in competitions/championships such as ICPC, IOI, INOI/ICOz, etc; or do research for funzies; or win hackathons etc.) Have crazy amounts of agency (passion projects 4 life; things annoy you? - you just fix them) Love working with friends (extremely strong opinions, weakly held; have a great sense of humor) Build agents and are an AI power user (but can think for yourself) Fast learner Who we would love for you to become (or you already are): Curious about Machine Learning and Reinforcement Learning Agent evaluator Test driven developer What do you get to do? Solve problems that don't have a known solution yet. Build agents that make thousands of context-dependent decisions daily. Ship things that real paying customers use the next day. Talk to customers, understand their needs, and build. Own entire systems end-to-end: from the research that informs an approach, to the architecture, to the code, to watching it work in production. Work at the frontier of what agents can actually do reliably, not what demos look like on Twitter.

Remote (India) · Night shift · 6 days/week - 6:30PM to 6:30AM IST · 7–12 LPA CTC Vela is backed by Y Combinator, CRV, Rebel Fund, and angels from OpenAI. We're building intelligent systems for coordination, starting with scheduling (deceptively hard). Our AI makes thousands of context-dependent decisions every day. For example: "John will take a 7 AM call with a CEO, but not with a peer." How do you handle that? Our clients are the world's top recruiting and executive search firms. They run searches for Fortune 500 CHROs, CEOs, and board members, and our AI autonomously coordinates the interviews that make those searches happen. Why this role matters A single error in scheduling, tone, or context can derail a six-figure search. You're the reason that doesn't happen, and the reason our AI gets sharper every week. The role You sit at the intersection of frontier AI and high-stakes client work. You are the judgment layer ensuring every message our AI sends to a Fortune 500 executive is sharp, contextually correct, and on-brand for the search firm we represent. This is high-ownership and generalist. Your core work is reviewing AI-generated scheduling actions and stepping in when the system needs human judgment. Beyond that, you'll help design the playbooks our AI learns from, surface patterns that sharpen the product, and partner directly with the founders on how we scale. What you'll do Review AI-generated scheduling actions before they reach top search firms and their C-suite candidates Make real-time judgment calls on ambiguous scenarios: tone for a CHRO, whether to reschedule, how to handle missing thread context Catch the subtle errors that matter: wrong time zones, misread intent, off-tone language, missing context from prior threads Surface patterns in AI behaviour to the founders and product team Take on adjacent operational projects as we scale, from client onboarding to internal process design Who you are Exceptional written English. You can draft a message to a Fortune 500 CHRO that reads natural, polished, and professional Sharp judgment under time pressure Sustained focus and reliability. You treat your shift like the live production environment it is Generalist by instinct Bachelors in English, BBA, etc from a Tier 1 Univesity Big 4 or equivalent background preferred (EY, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte) Ability to join in the next two weeks Career progression Vela is one of the fastest-growing startups in the world, and we promote internally. Excel here and you'll take on more responsibility quickly, with a clear path to management within two years. How we hire Every applicant completes a 6-day paid work trial reviewing real AI outputs. We assess written English, error detection, judgment on edge cases, and response speed. Strong trial performance leads to a full-time offer. Working at Vela Small team, collaborative culture, direct access to the founders. Monthly team lunches, real investment in each other's growth, and a genuinely interesting problem.

About Vela Vela is the AI scheduling assistant. We handle complex, multi-party meeting and interview scheduling at scale across email, SMS, and WhatsApp, so recruiters and teams can stop drowning in coordination and get back to the work that matters. We're backed by YC, CRV, Angels from Open AI and other incredible investors, growing fast, and already trusted by leading executive search and staffing firms to run scheduling for their most important accounts. We're a small, high-output team, and we're looking for someone who wants to operate at the center of a company in its earliest, fastest-moving phase. The Role This is a true generalist role reporting directly to the founders. You'll be a core pillar of strength across the company: stepping in wherever you're needed most, owning high-impact projects end to end, and freeing up founder bandwidth so we can move faster. You'll also be a key face to our customers. If you're sharp, unusually capable, and you want a front-row seat to building a company, this is for you. The role spans three areas: What You'll Do Strategic projects Own high-impact, cross-functional initiatives from start to finish Take on the urgent, undefined problems that don't yet have an owner Research, scope, and drive special projects that move the company forward Turn founder priorities into shipped outcomes Customer onboarding and success Be a first point of contact for new customers as they come onto the platform Run onboarding: setup, training, and getting accounts to value quickly Keep customers happy, organized, and supported day to day Surface customer feedback and patterns back to the team Founder leverage, Operations and Admin Act as a force multiplier for the founders, freeing up bandwidth wherever it matters most Keep the company's day-to-day running smoothly behind the scenes Own coordination, communications, and follow-ups so nothing falls through the cracks Anticipate what's needed before it's asked Who You Are Exceptional written and spoken English. You'll be customer-facing with US-based enterprise clients, so polish and clarity are non-negotiable. Extremely organized and detail-oriented. You catch the things others miss and nothing slips. Trustworthy and discreet. You'll have access to sensitive information and operate close to the founders. A clear, proactive communicator. You flag issues early and don't wait to be asked. Scrappy and resourceful. You figure things out, move fast, and are comfortable with ambiguity. Customer-first instincts. You're warm, responsive, and make people feel taken care of. Bonus Points Experience at a startup, especially supporting a founder or executive MBB or Similar background, MBA preferred Background in operations, customer success, or chief-of-staff-style work Comfort with tools like Slack, Notion, Gmail/Calendar, and basic spreadsheets A track record of owning projects independently and getting things done Logistics and Compensation Location: Remote, India-based Hours: Strong overlap with US working hours required for customer calls and founder support. This will be 5PM to 5AM IST night shift role, six days a week . Why This Role This is a high-trust, high-growth seat. You'll start by owning the operational and customer foundation of the company, and as Vela scales, this role grows with it: more ownership, more responsibility, and a path toward leading operations or customer success as we build out the team. If you want to learn how a company gets built from the inside and grow fast doing it, we'd love to talk.

Who are we? We are a team of obsessive thinkers, builders, and doers from Harvard, CMU, UChicago, UPenn, GT, and more. We have published papers, own patents, built companies, and received international accolades. Most of all, we are a group of friends (some would say family) who work hard (9-9-6) to solve some of the most challenging problems faced by real people. What do we do? Vela’s mission is to completely remove the tedious human coordination starting with scheduling. We started with the most complex version of the problem faced by searchers, recruiters, and staffers by creating systems that are able to solve situations like ‘John the recruiter will gladly take a call with CEO Jill at 7:00 AM in the morning, but not with their colleague’. How does one intelligently make decisions as such based on the context that changes person to person, industry to industry? ← This is just one of the many problems we tackle everyday. Who are you? Ultra intellectually curious (you are active in competitions/championships such as ICPC, IOI, Putnam, etc; or do research for funzies; or win hackathons etc.) Have crazy amounts of agency (passion projects 4 life; things annoy you? - you just fix them) Love working with friends (extremely strong opinions, weakly held; have a great sense of humor) Build agents and are an AI power user (but can think for yourself) Fast learner Who we would love for you to become (or you already are): Curious about Machine Learning and Reinforcement Learning Agent evaluator Test driven developer What do you get to do? Solve problems that don't have a known solution yet. Build agents that make thousands of context-dependent decisions daily. Ship things that real paying customers use the next day. Talk to customers, understand their needs, and build. Own entire systems end-to-end: from the research that informs an approach, to the architecture, to the code, to watching it work in production. Work at the frontier of what agents can actually do reliably, not what demos look like on Twitter.