Managing Director, Defense + Space at kos.ai (San Francisco, CA)
kos.ai· San Francisco, CA·
Role details
Job description
ABOUT KOS.AI kos.ai
Trillions of dollars are flowing into datacenters, defense, energy, and manufacturing. The finance teams processing that capital can't keep up. 800-page invoices, thousand-page contracts, landing every few weeks, often on weekends. The world can't hire specialized accountants fast enough.
Kos is the world's first virtual finance employee for america’s industrial revival. We're processing invoices for some of the fastest-growing infrastructure and defense companies in America. Backed by $12M from 8VC, XYZ, and MVP with industry-leaders as shareholders (Keith Taylor [ex-CFO Equinix], Heather Paduck [CFO STACK], Matt DeNezza [ex-CFO Crusoe], Sachin Katti [Industrial Compute OpenAI]).
Media: The Information covering our launch theinformation.com
THE ROLE
You’ll own the opening, development, and nurturing of relationships with the CFOs, CEOs, and COOs of our target customer (Defense and Space companies).
This is a senior leadership role where the goals + scoping would be defined by you, then executed against (vs solely by us). So you’d own goal setting + alignment, spend plan construction within budget guardrails, and then execution quarter-over-quarter.
YOU
- Operator: VP + Above at a Defense or Space Manufacturer. Flexible on department, targeting Finance / Operations. Also open to operators who have these companies as their customers.
- And/Or: Investor: Principal + Above at a Defense / Space capital partner (equity and/or debt). Origination / check writing responsibility.
- And/Or: Something else: Let’s talk!
BENEFITS
- Medical, dental, vision for you and your dependents (little/no premiums, the absolute best we qualify for)
- 401(k)
- Visa sponsorship
TEAM
Tanuj and Mani met at Stanford as graduate researchers under Sachin Katti.
Tanuj spent his career in and around the operators Kos serves: IT, datacenters, industrials, and hardware. He previously founded Spot AI, a computer vision company which scaled to over 1,000 enterprise customers. Mani's an International Olympiad medalist, earned his Engineering PhD at Stanford, & published leading research at Microsoft Research. He then built product within Microsoft Azure's Strategic Missions and Technologies group.
We built Kos because the finance and operations teams behind America's re-industrialization are talented, overwhelmed, and can't hire their way out. Every CFO we spoke to described the same problem: 800-page pay apps, thousand-page contracts, work piling up on weekends, and a talent pool for inventory, utilities, capex, and construction accounting that's simply too small to meet the moment. The back office of the buildout is the bottleneck, and it's the one nobody's building for. They deserve a partner that can keep pace with their ambition
Why work at kos.ai
- Founding team pedigree: Co-founders are Stanford-trained researchers; CEO Tanuj Thapliyal previously founded Spot AI (scaled to 1,000+ enterprise customers). Co-founder Mani is an Olympiad medalist with a Stanford PhD and Microsoft Research background.
- Mission-driven: Tackling the overlooked but critical “back-office bottleneck” of America’s industrial revival — a problem with massive economic impact.
- Early-stage impact: As a founding engineer, you’d shape the product, architecture, and culture from the ground up.
- Remote/hybrid: Not explicitly stated, but the product is built for remote collaboration (Slack, Zoom, email), suggesting a flexible work culture.
- Notable perks: Work with a world-class advisory board including C-suite leaders from Equinix, Crusoe, and OpenAI; opportunity to build the world’s first virtual finance employee at the intersection of AI and industrial infrastructure.