About First Round

First Round is a venture capital firm that works with founders exclusively at the earliest stages of company building, often when all they have is an “imagine if.” We fill in where we can until the team is filled out, tackling crucial early hiring and equipping those who are great at building product with the skills to sell it, too. By getting the foundational firsts right, we increase the odds of finding extreme product-market fit. Our founders’ “imagine ifs” have turned into companies like Notion, Roblox, Uber, and Square.

About the Enablement Team

We're looking for a strategic Head of Enablement & Operations to join our operating team and help shape the future of how we support world-changing founders.

The Enablement team ensures everyone at First Round can do their best work. We equip our team with optimized systems, smart workflows, and high-impact rituals—all in service of our founders.

This role manages the operating system behind an exceptional firm, whether automating manual processes, implementing AI tools, leading performance reviews, or facilitating internal communications. As a firm, we work fast, operate with extreme autonomy, and believe that delivering real results matters as much as setting ambitious goals. We're allergic to bureaucracy, obsessed with purpose and outcomes, and never let perfection get in the way of progress. We're proactive, responsive, and deeply accountable to one another.

As Head of Enablement & Operations, you'll not only build systems and improve workflows, but also ensure they work for the humans using them. We're constantly evolving, improving, and raising the bar—and you'll be a big part in bringing that to life for the team.

About the Head of Enablement & Operations Role

Your core role as Head of Enablement & Operations includes:

• Designing systems that scale. You'll build and maintain firm-wide workflows, automations, and internal knowledge systems—with a sharp focus on efficiency, discoverability, and user experience. You'll integrate tools like Notion, Airtable, Slack, Zapier, Salesforce, and AI tools to unlock speed and clarity across the team.

• Supporting and enabling the team. You'll be the go-to partner when someone's stuck, when a system needs rethinking, when there’s a new experiment we need help to unlock, or when a manual process could be automated. You'll help team members design and launch their own solutions—and you'll know when to step in and help build it yourself.

• Managing critical functions. You'll oversee Enablement's functional leads and priorities across Product & Engineering, Programs & Events, and Workplaces. You'll serve as the strategic bridge between teams, championing innovation and cross-collaboration while upholding First Round's high standards of excellence.

• Stewarding employee experience. You'll directly lead employee experience and people operations, from keeping a strong pulse on how each team member is doing to managing onboarding, offboarding, role changes, ongoing learning and development, and sensitive people matters—ensuring our team is well cared for and operating at their best.

• Owning our internal rhythms. You'll run the processes and experiences that keep First Round aligned and high-functioning, from performance reviews and compensation planning to internal communications, offsites, operating team budgets and annual planning.

You could be a great Head of Enablement & Operations at First Round if:

• You're a builder-doer-tinkerer. You don't just have strong opinions on operational excellence—you're the person who builds the workflows, automates the steps, refines the AI prompts and ships the systems that make work better for everyone else.

• You thrive on autonomy. You move fast, keep yourself (and others!) unblocked, and don't wait for instructions. You hold yourself to high standards and take full ownership of problems you tackle with no oversight.

• You are obsessed with details. You'll manage many projects across different workstreams. As this is a player-coach role, you need to be in the top 1% for detail orientation. You're exceptionally organized and can envision what a perfectly organized system looks like.

• You've worked at a startup or fast-moving team. You're comfortable operating at "startup speed," making decisions without perfect information, and shifting focus when new information emerges.

• You are influential. Regardless of your style, you're senior enough to see the forest from the trees, clearly articulate what matters and why, and influence team members. While trust builds over time, you find ways to establish credibility from day one.

• You've managed teams and systems. You know how to build cohesion across teams, identify key opportunities and pain points, and lead people to deliver exceptional outcomes quickly. You also expertly manage tooling, documentation, and data to create a resilient, well-oiled firm.

• You care deeply about people and results-driven culture. You're not just an ops leader—you're a culture carrier. You model high standards, design impactful experiences, help team members do their best work, and advocate for what's best for the team and firm.

• You have a deep interest in venture capital. You'll need to quickly understand our business model, which differs significantly from traditional tech companies. In venture capital, timeframes are longer, employee tenures vary, and team structures differ. You know how to lead with influence and guide senior executives to decisions, despite the unique organizational structure.

• You love being in-person. We're not looking for a remote team member for this role. You'll be deeply integrated into our organization, and we want your presence known and felt! This role is based in San Francisco and requires at least 3 days per week in office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Our Values

At First Round, we value resourcefulness, team-play, excellence and hustle. To give you a sense of what our team is all about, check out our values that guide our work:

• Try harder for founders. They’re our customers — LPs are our shareholders. Going above and beyond for our founders is what we do. We strive to be a founder's most valuable investor. That’s why we don't pull term sheets, and we're always in for their second round. We respond to their emails in hours, not days. We build candidate pipelines, unprompted. We arrange meal deliveries when they become a new parent. Simply put, we go above and beyond to earn that right to be their first call every time there’s a bump in the road.

• Give your unvarnished opinions and unwavering support. We strive to be kind, not nice. One of the most (counterintuitively) compassionate things you can do is to offer your unvarnished opinion — along with your unwavering support. That willingness to risk a fleeting moment of discomfort in exchange for someone else’s growth is long-term kindness.

• Treat the little things like big things. Everything can always be made better. We’re all about the carefully crafted, the nitty-gritty, and the bespoke. Whether it’s hand cutting each nameplate, or debating the optimal shape of the dinner table, no detail is too small to sweat.

• Make speed a habit. Whatever you’re building, remember that now is better than two weeks from now. We’re fans of starting small and iterating quickly. No matter what we’re launching, you’ll likely hear this question in a meeting: “How soon can we get something out there?”

• Invent and wander. Never stop experimenting. The best ideas are born out of experimentation. Our flagship programs have always come from our penchant for going out on a limb and approaching problems with a different perspective.

• Build wider doorways and longer tables. We're in the business of backing people and betting on their ideas — no matter where they come from. While talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. First Round is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workspace and we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply!