Executive Assistant to the CTO

Job Description

Job Description

Artificial intelligence is changing war - making decisions in combat quicker and more accurate, while enabling information to be shared more rapidly across both America’s and her adversaries’ militaries. Modern Intelligence builds Sovereign, the first defense-purpose foundation AI for unmanned systems, to be the standard battlefield AI on every Western unmanned system. Today, Sovereign allows drones as varied as unmanned vessels on water to backpack attack quadcopters to see, decide, and act even when jammed. We believe the responsibility of reliably and ethically building lethally autonomous AI is immense to our service members, the American people, and civilians everywhere. 

Modern Intelligence has worked with partners across the Department of War including the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, and countless unmanned systems hardware companies. 

We have raised more than $22M million in venture capital from Exponential, Oxford Funds, Bedrock, Vine Ventures, Contrary, Air Street, Caffeinated, Champion Hill, Swell, Myelin, and others.

Details

We are looking for an executive assistant for our CTO. We are a small company that is growing fast and our CTO often has more information coming at him than he has time to manage. We are looking for someone to whom he can delegate context: You will be asked to organize calendars and manage time, ensuring he has sufficient focus time for engineering and design activities as well as other traditional EA activities.

We are looking for an EA who is excited to embrace AI to help with EA tasks: we want our EA to be able to focus on tasks that require a person, or physical presence. You may be asked to attend meetings the CTO cannot, to capture what happened and brief him afterward, not to represent him or make decisions in his place. You will often be asked to prep the CTO and possibly other execs before meetings. You will be asked to check in on the engineering team while the CTO is busy or away.

We are looking for someone who will form a strong relationship with everyone at the company (at least in the near future), especially with members of the engineering organization and the other executives. Some level of technical sophistication is required, but no formal engineering experience is required (but is encouraged). You may be asked to take notes in technical meetings - capturing decisions and follow-ups. You will be asked to provide periodic updates throughout the day.

You will be the first EA hired at Modern Intelligence, so you will help shape expectations for the role for future EAs and will have a significant opportunity to teach us how best to utilize EAs.

Requirements

• 3+ years supporting a senior leader as an executive assistant, or equivalent experience in a coordination-heavy role.
• Enough technical comprehension to sit in an engineering meeting and follow it: you should be able to tell “blocked on review” from “blocked on hardware” and relay a problem accurately without needing to solve it. You will not be asked to write code.
• Strong written communication. A large part of this job is meeting preps and short written updates that need to be accurate and quick to read.
• Fluency with AI tools, and enthusiasm for using them to take the routine parts of this job off your plate.
• Discretion. You will regularly see personnel, financial, customer, and export-controlled information.
• On-site in Austin, Texas.
• Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)). This role sits in meetings covering export-controlled technology.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting engineering or technical leadership.
• Experience at a startup or other small, fast-moving company.
• Fluency with Google's office suite (Gmail, Calendar, Drives, Docs, Sheets, Slides)
• Familiarity with Jira, Confluence, or GitLab, or a demonstrated ability to pick up tools like them quickly.
• A background in program or project coordination: scrum master, program coordinator, technical recruiting coordinator, or similar.
• Experience owning travel booking and expense management for an executive.

Nice to have

• Prior defense industry experience.
• An active or previously held security clearance.
• Military administrative experience, particularly in a technical role.
• Experience supporting more than one executive at once.

Compensation Specifics

• Final offer depends on demonstrated depth in a systems language and how much of the stack you can pick up quickly.
• Equity is granted on top of base for every full-time role.

Benefits

• Full medical for employee and family
• Full dental and vision for employee and partial coverage for your dependents. 
• Generous and flexible PTO
• Paid Holidays: All federal holidays + last two weeks of the calendar year
• Paid Parental Leave: 12 weeks

Modern Intelligence builds software that identifies targets and guides munitions to them, and it is in use on live missions today. You will not write that code, but you will sit in the rooms where it gets decided and you will know what everyone here is working on. If you want your organization and judgment applied to work that actually matters, apply.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.