GTM engineers, stealth Fintech, CEO search

opportunities at breakout startups, co-founder searches, and early teams hiring

✨ Hey there this is a free edition of Next Play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey.

---

It has been really great chatting with people in the Friends of Next Play community. As a reminder, when you join Friends of Next Play, you get invited to our private Slack, where you’ll get invites to gatherings, meet potential co-founders and like-minded peers, access additional resources, and much more. You can join here.

---

Co-founders and people to jam with:

• Sathish previously led a YC-backed startup to millions in sales. Background in full-stack engineering, AI, and research at Stanford. Looking for a co-founder. Reach out here: srnagappan@gmail.com.

• A senior engineering leader from a Series B fintech startup is looking to collaborate with people on new company ideas. Reach out to hi@nextplay.so and we’ll try to connect you.

• Trevor is a CTO (ex CMU/Meta engineer) looking for a cofounder/CEO to run an already funded spinoff. The company uses AI to process medical records for personal injury lawyers. Reach out here: greg@paradome.com.

• Cole previously was the director of engineering launching Walmart’s AI chat products that served 100,000+ customers daily. He’s now looking for a co-founder, ideally someone with industry-expertise that sees an opportunity for AI agents to make an impact. Reach out here: colenextplay@gmail.com.

• A venture investor (7+ years in VC, 40+ investments) is exploring ideas in AI, education, and childcare. They are looking to chat with others excited by building in this category. Reach out here: hi@nextplay.so and we’ll try to connect you.

Early teams:

• Jesse from Zucca is building a generative AI platform for food and beverages brands to accelerate food development. They are hiring engineers and product designers. Apply here. (Seattle, Remote)

• Irina from Elayne is building an AI estate management platform. They are hiring a design engineer and a staff software engineer. Learn more here and reach out here: graf@elayne.com. (Hybrid, Denver, NYC).

• Phil from Live Near Friends is hiring a social media content producer to grow their Instagram and TikTok audience. They will feature stories about people designing life with friends & family in close proximity. Apply here. (Remote)

• Ari from Mbodi is currently in the YC batch building an ai-native operating system for industrial robotics. They are looking to hire a part-time operations person as well as an executive assistant. Reach out here: ari@mbodi.ai. (Remote)

• Lennard from Langdock just announced they crossed $3m in ARR and have doubled their revenue so far this year. They are building a custom AI workflow platform for businesses. They are hiring a software engineer and an “AI associate.” Apply here. (Remote, Berlin)

• Scott was previously the founder of Behance and Chief Product Officer of Adobe. He’s a partner now at A24 and is looking to assemble a technical exploration team to work on “storytelling-related” technology projects. Learn more and apply here. (NYC)

• Aaron from Tribute Labs is hiring an engineer, designer, and research associates. They are building an AI-powered investment platform. Learn more here and reach out here: jobs@tributelabs.xyz. (Hybrid, NYC)

• Charles from Letta is hiring a business growth lead / chief of staff, as well as engineers. They are building a platform for creating stateful AI agents. They spun out of a research lab at Berkeley and recently emerged from stealth with a $10m fundraise. Apply here. (SF)

• Chili Piper is hiring a “customer love engineer” and a sales development representative. They are building a meeting scheduling platform. Apply here. (Remote)

• Remi is building a roofing contractor management platform, and recently raised a Series A. They are hiring a product manager, data analyst, accountants, and engineers. Apply here. (Utah)

• We made a list of 38-fast growing startups under 25 people.

Scaling startups:

• We know many companies looking to hire a “go-to-market (GTM) engineer.” This is someone who has a blended skillset (business-minded, data-savvy, creative) and uses it to build growth engines. Fill out this form and we’ll try to connect you.

• Yansen from Vapi is building infrastructure to help developers create AI voice agents. They are hiring forward deployed engineers, product marketers, and a founding salesperson. Learn more here and reach out here: yansen@vapi.ai. (SF)

• Andy from Stytch is hiring in product, engineering, and sales. They are building an identity platform with authentication, authorization, and fraud built-into the API. Apply here and reach out here: andytsai@stytch.com. (SF, Hybrid)

• Gamma has tens of millions in revenue with just 28 people. They help you build presentations using AI. They are hiring engineers and designers. Apply here. (SF)

• Anil from Meter is building vertically integrated internet infrastructure. They are backed by Sequoia and are hiring for research engineering, sales, recruiters, and product operations. Apply here. (SF)

• ElevenLabs grew to $100m in ARR in less than 2 years with just 50 people. They are building a realistic voice AI platform. They are hiring in every department: sales, customer success, engineering, research, and more. Apply here. (Remote, SF, London)

• WeSki grew to $10m in ARR with a team of 40 people. They are building a ski holiday booking platform. Apply here. (Israel)

• Ankur from Braintrust is hiring in nearly every department: engineering, sales, business operations. They are building an LLM testing platform. Apply here. (Remote, NYC, SF)

• Spencer from Lightsource just announced a $33m round and are hiring salespeople, software engineers, product designers, and customer success people. They are building procurement workflow automation software. Apply here. (SF, Seattle, Denver, Remote)

• Amjad from Replit is hiring in operations, sales, and engineering. They are building an automated app development platform. Apply here. (Bay Area, Hybrid)

• Jason from Altruist raised $169 million last year and are hiring for 52 roles: sales, compliance, customer success, etc. They are building a modern custodian for registered investment advisors. Apply here. (SF, LA, Dallas)

• Dust surpassed $2m in ARR last year. They are building an AI automation platform and hiring in sales, customer success, and engineering. Apply here. (NYC, Paris)

• Max from Harmonic is building a startup data platform for investors. They are hiring a business operations associate, an account executive, and a designer. Apply here. (NYC, Remote)

• Windsurf has recently passed tens of millions in ARR. They are making an AI code editor. They are hiring for every department: engineering, sales, operations, etc. Apply here. (Remote)

• Chandan from Cointracker is cryptocurrency tax software that’s now used by 2.5 million+ people. Apply here. They are hiring in strategic finance, engineering, and partnerships. Apply here. (Remote)

• Jennifer from Scribe is building an ai-powered documentation platform. They are hiring customer success people, engineers, marketers, and product managers. Apply here. (SF, Remote)

• Backbone turns your iPhone into an Xbox controller. They are hiring 10 roles: data analysis, accounting, program management, and more. Apply here. (Bay Area, Hybrid)

Investing and other:

• Charley from Pathlight Ventures is hiring a chief of staff to work on early stage investments and special projects. Apply here. (NYC)

• Hummingbird VC is hiring analysts to work on early-stage global investments. Apply here. (SF)

• NFX is hiring a principal investor. Apply here. (SF)

Featured resources:

• Tactical AI guide for non-technical people: A Next Play community member shares practical advice and practice exercises to help you master using AI tools to be more productive at work.

• 23 startup ideas: We asked people in the next play community (investors, founders, operators) for their best startup ideas and curated it into a single list.

Note:

• Some exciting announcements ahead: one of which is that we’ll soon be launching the Next Play Platform. Imagine having a single portal where you can actively/anonymously search for (by location, industry, skillset, etc.) and get connected to the best startup opportunities. If you’d like to get early access, just send us an email (hi@nextplay.so) with the subject-line: “access.” We’re excited to hear what you think!

• Are you hiring? Send us an email: hi@nextplay.so. We’d love to connect you with candidates who may be a fit.

• If you think you may be missing some emails from next play, Substack told us to tell you to follow these instructions to ensure you’re receiving everything from our domain.

• Thanks again for being part of the Next Play community. If there’s anything we can do at all, or if you just have feedback—send us an email (hi@nextplay.so) or message us in Slack. Hope to talk soon!

• If you like what you read, please consider upvoting this post and sharing with your friends.