Founder's Associate

At Laelaps AI, we believe robotics is entering a transformative decade, much like the arrival of the internet. Advances in AI, cloud computing, and hardware are reshaping what autonomous systems can do. Our mission is to build the intelligent software that powers physical security in the real world - enabling robots and sensors to handle dangerous and critical tasks that humans shouldn't have to. By engineering the orchestration layer for intelligent security, we aim to create a world that is safer, more secure, and more resilient.

We're a strong founding team based in Zurich, backed by visionary investors and advisors. We are engineering the future of security today!

As our Founder's Associate, you work directly with the founding team on GTM, operations and whatever the company is pushing hardest that month. Most of your time goes into GTM: who we should be selling to, how we reach them and the architecture of the system.

This is a generalist role first: a grant application with a hard deadline, the monthly investor update, diligence on a fund before a first meeting, a tender worth answering, a segment nobody has touched yet. These arrive ambiguous, with no process and no obvious right answer, and they are yours. We care less about which of them you have done before and more about whether you can pick one up cold and get somewhere.

If you would rather start than wait to be asked, this is the seat.

In a normal week:

• The top of the funnel: ICP, target lists, sourcing, sequencing, first touch.

• Your own agentic systems, from idea to running overnight, in Claude Code, Codex, Hermes or whatever you prefer.

• The market watch: news, tenders and grant deadlines worth acting on.

• What the market sees: offers, one-pagers and campaign material that go to customers.

• The numbers: our growth and funnel models, and which segments are worth the effort.

• The GTM infrastructure: the CRM, the data in it, and the routines that keep the pipeline honest.

• Whatever creates the most leverage that week.

We are looking for a generalist with commercial instinct and a technical affinity. Someone with agency, not someone waiting for a process to follow. AI agents are how you work, not a tool you occasionally reach for, but you are still the smartest thing in your own workflow: you decide what is worth building, and you can tell when an agent comes back confident and wrong. Half of what you take on will arrive without a clear question attached, let alone an answer. Above all, you want ownership, not proximity to it.

• You build your own tooling with AI coding agents and run your work through them daily.

• 2+ years of experience, at least. A job, your own venture, or anything where you carried real responsibility.

• Commercial instinct, ideally from time at the top of a B2B funnel. You can talk through outreach you ran yourself.

• You run several things at once and ship them. Fast, and with a high quality.

• You are comfortable inheriting systems you did not design and working out how they run.

• Native or near-native German and fluent English. Our market is German speaking and the team runs in English.

• Based in or willing to relocate to Zurich, with the right to work in Switzerland.

• Prospecting or selling into industry, critical infrastructure or defence.

• Enough comfort in Figma to keep our offer and collateral pipeline running.

• Experience treating a CRM (we use Attio) as a system you shape rather than a form you fill in.

• Startup or early-stage experience, ideally as an early hire.

• Swiss German.

• Ownership: you are able to ship products and deliver project end-to-end.

• Mission: autonomous security that keeps people and critical sites safe, including in defence.

• Career path: a ground-floor seat with real runway. Prove your value and you will not have barriers to grow.

• Team: work directly with PhD-level co-founders in AI, Robotics, and Physics, alongside a strong (and fun) founding team.

• Compensation: Competitive equity/salary package

• Culture: International founding team that is serious about building but does not take itself too seriously.