Strategy and Ops Lead

The role in one paragraph

You sit in the Strategy and Ops team and own the growth problems that decide whether Pallet becomes a generational company. You report to Ryan Gu, our Chief of Staff, and work closely with Sushanth Raman, our CEO. In practice, you're close to the decisions that set direction.

Why this role exists. Sushanth has been doing most of this himself. Channel partnerships, value-based pricing, investor and advisor networks, executive relationships — these have been the CEO's own projects, run out of his calendar. That no longer scales. You're not hired into a function someone else defined; you're taking handoff of the CEO's highest-leverage work, alongside Ryan and the rest of the Strategy and Ops team.

Reporting & exposure

What the work actually looks like

Here's the real mix from someone about a month into this seat. Treat it as a picture of the territory, not a job spec — the split will shift with your strengths and what the company needs that quarter.

Business value and pricing

• Pricing, business case development and sales enablement

Executive support, strategy, and internal leverage

• Running our executive & partnership network, help run events and strategies for product and commercial strategy as well as helping to build the GTM engine.

What good looks like at the end of a quarter: new partners sourced and activated, a pricing or business-case change that shows up in closed deals, and multiplying the potential output of our commercial and deployment teams.

What this role is not

"Strategy and operations" means twenty different things at twenty different companies, so we're explicit here.

• Not a research function. 
• Not account management. 
• Not fully defined, on purpose. 

Why Pallet, and why now

• The market. The physical economy is a $12T global industry running on manual workflows. We're rebuilding the operation layer with AI agents.
• Talent density. You'd work next to people who were early at DoorDash, Google/Nest, Ramp, Scale, AtoB, Assembled, and Verkada, plus MIT supply chain and McKinsey alumni.
• The window. Outsized influence over product, GTM, and company trajectory only exists for a short stretch of a company's life.

How your career scales here

We're flat and we promote from within. We care about slope, ownership, and impact; not ladders or tenure. 

• Nilkanth Patel: IC Head of Product Engineering CTO
• Jeff Zhao: first business hire Head of Deployments/Product
• Austin Zheng: Chief of Staff Head of Finance
• Grace Turner: first recruiter Head of Talent

Realistic paths from this seat: Head of Growth, Head of Partnerships, Head of Pricing and Business Value, or GM of a product line. Which one depends on which part of the work you make yours.

Compensation

• Base: 150,000-250,000 plus equity and full benefits

Interview process

1. Chat with Grace Turner, Head of Talent — 30 min
2. Business case conversation with Ryan Gu, Chief of Staff — 45–60 min
3. Short Excel modeling exercise, on your own time
4. Final interview, onsite in San Francisco — ~3.5 hours
5. Brief background and reference check

We move fast and keep you informed at every stage.