MangoDesk — Strategic Projects Lead

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $75,000–$100,000 base (OTE $150,000–$200,000) + meaningful equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available Reports to: CEO (name not provided)

MangoDesk is a YC-backed, seed-stage startup on a mission to bridge the gap between AI and the $5 trillion knowledge work economy by building data infrastructure and environments — including the reinforcement learning environments frontier AI labs use to train and evaluate their models. Its software lets AI teams spin up custom evaluation datasets and annotation pipelines by describing their needs in plain English, automating interfaces, instructions, QA, and annotator management so teams produce high-quality training and eval data far faster. The founding team brings experience from Scale AI and Uber and previously founded a successful AI company; the seed round was oversubscribed and led by top-tier VCs.

Founded: 2025 | Team size: 1–10 | Total funding: Oversubscribed seed (amount not disclosed) Industry: AI Tools / data infrastructure Website: https://mangodesk.com Office: San Francisco, CA

• Ground-floor ownership: Reports directly to the CEO and ramps within the first week to own key data pipelines end-to-end — building operational processes from scratch, not inheriting them.
• Frontier demand: RL environments are a key bottleneck to model improvement and demand is growing at a breakneck pace; this seat sits on some of the highest-impact problems at the company.
• Pedigreed team + real backing: Founders out of Scale AI and Uber, a prior successful AI exit, and an oversubscribed seed from top-tier VCs, plus meaningful equity.

A hands-on execution role (not strategy or advisory) sitting across engineering, operations, and go-to-market, owning end-to-end delivery of RL environments for strategic customers and projects.

• →Own end-to-end execution of RL environment delivery for strategic customers and projects
• →Own key data pipelines end-to-end, starting after a one-week ramp
• →Lead cross-functional projects spanning engineering, operations, and go-to-market
• →Build operational processes from scratch where none currently exist
• →Report progress directly to the founders on some of the company's highest-impact problems

Tech stack: SQL / Python (for self-serve data analytics)

• 2 to 5 years in investment banking, private equity, or management consulting, or prior experience as a Strategic Project Lead
• Lead cross-functional projects spanning engineering, operations, and go-to-market
• Own end-to-end execution of RL Environments delivery for strategic customers and projects
• Report progress directly to the founders
• Strong technical background with CS degree or ability to do data analytics using SQL or Python
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to own ambiguous cross-functional projects end-to-end
• Entrepreneurial mindset excited to build things from scratch
• Strong communication skills and bias toward ownership

• 2+ years leading a team
• 2+ years developing product or operational processes
• 2+ years experience as a SWE
• Prior experience at startups or high-growth companies
• Prior experience in consulting
• Experience tackling operational challenges
• Experience with human data and applied AI
• Experience with post-training and RL

• Pure strategy or advisory backgrounds with no hands-on delivery ownership
• Unable to do their own data analytics in SQL or Python
• Requires an established playbook, defined process, and clear direction to move
• Optimizing for a structured career track or brand name over scope and equity upside
• Unable to work in person in San Francisco full-time

• Salary — $75,000–$100,000 base (OTE $150,000–$200,000)
• Equity — Meaningful / competitive equity
• On-site policy — In person, San Francisco, full-time
• Visa sponsorship — None available
• Employment type — Full-time
• Experience — 2–5 years
• Location — San Francisco, CA

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Initial Screen — Initial screen. Stage 3 — First Round — First-round interview. Stage 4 — Second Round — Second-round interview. Stage 5 — Offer — Offer extended. Stage 6 — Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.