--- title: 'Office Manager at Generalist' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/office-manager-generalist-san-mateo-nmvjjw2x5jpv' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-09' --- # Office Manager at Generalist - **Company:** Generalist - **Location:** San Mateo, CA - **Compensation:** $70k–$130k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-05-18 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist/dd96a0e1-13e6-479f-8ab1-c4136411d0ff/application **Skills:** Office Operations, Vendor Management, Budget Management, Facilities Management, Process Improvement, Contract Negotiation > The Office Manager oversees daily workplace operations, vendor coordination, and budgets to ensure a seamless employee experience. This role involves managing office spaces, implementing efficient systems, and supporting scaling operations as the company grows. ## Job description ## ABOUT GENERALIST At Generalist, we are on a mission to build general intelligence for the physical world and make it useful to everyone. We believe the industries and homes of the future will depend on humans and machines working together in new ways. Robots can help us build more and get more done. We build embodied foundation models, starting with a focus on dexterity. This requires advancing the frontiers of data, models, and hardware, to enable robots to intelligently interact with the physical world. The company embraces both large-scale AI and robotics as core to its DNA. Our team of researchers, roboticists, and company builders come from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and other frontier labs—with a track record of shipping AI breakthroughs. Before Generalist, we pioneered large embodied multimodal models and vision-language-action models (PaLM-E, https://research.google/blog/palm-e-an-embodied-multimodal-language-model/ RT-2 https://deepmind.google/blog/rt-2-new-model-translates-vision-and-language-into-action/, Gemini Robotics https://deepmind.google/models/gemini-robotics/), launched and scaled ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/ and GPT-4 https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-research/ to hundreds of millions of users, engineered the foundations of autonomous driving, built next-generation robots (Atlas https://bostondynamics.com/atlas/, Spot https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/, Stretch https://bostondynamics.com/products/stretch/) and pushed the limits of what they can do (from parkour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk to manipulation https://bostondynamics.com/blog/large-behavior-models-atlas-find-new-footing/, and testing robustness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuA50H9uek). We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. ## ABOUT THE ROLE This is a deeply cross-functional, execution-oriented role at the center of our workplace operations. As an Office Manager, you will ensure that the physical office, vendors, systems, and employee experience all come together into a high-functioning, high-velocity environment. You won’t sit purely in admin, facilities, HR, or events — you will operate horizontally across all of them. In practice, you will run the day-to-day office, coordinate vendors and services, manage budgets, support onboarding, and design the systems that keep everything running smoothly. You may rearrange physical spaces, troubleshoot infrastructure issues, negotiate contracts, and build repeatable processes that scale as the company grows. This role is about making the entire workplace operate seamlessly. If something is slowing the team down — whether it’s missing supplies, broken equipment, unclear processes, vendor issues, or gaps in employee experience — you fix it, or find the right person to fix it. You are the connective tissue between people, space, and operations. ## YOU’LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR: - Running daily office operations and ensuring everything functions smoothly - Designing and improving systems for office processes (supplies, vendors, events, onboarding) - Managing vendors (cleaning, internet, food, maintenance) and negotiating contracts - Coordinating deliveries, services, and ongoing facility needs - Owning office budgets, tracking spend, and processing invoices/reimbursements - Ensuring the office space is organized, well-maintained, and optimized for team productivity - Supporting employee onboarding (workspace setup, access, equipment readiness) - Planning and executing team events, lunches, and offsites - Managing shared spaces (conference rooms, calendars, common areas) - Handling mail, shipping, and general administrative workflows - Identifying operational bottlenecks and improving the office experience end-to-end YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU: - Have experience running office operations, workplace experience, or facilities in a fast-paced environment - Are highly organized and can manage multiple moving parts simultaneously - Think in systems and processes, not one-off fixes - Are comfortable coordinating across vendors, employees, and leadership - Have strong ownership and proactively solve problems without being asked - Enjoy both physical and operational work (moving things, setting up spaces, fixing issues) - Have high emotional intelligence and care about team experience and culture - Write clear documentation and create repeatable workflows - Prefer execution and speed over over-planning - Like being the person who “just makes it work” ## WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT This role works closely with leadership, HR, and operations. However: - This is not an Executive Assistant role focused on calendar or travel management - This is not a purely administrative role with narrowly defined tasks - This is not a facilities-only role limited to maintenance and repairs - This is not an events-only role focused solely on culture programming Instead, this role sits at the intersection of operations, workplace experience, and execution — ensuring the office runs end-to-end and continuously improves. If you are most excited by ownership, building systems, and making environments run seamlessly — this role may be a strong fit. Growth & Impact This role sits on the front lines of scaling our workplace as the company grows as the team expands, the scope evolves from managing a single office to shaping workplace strategy, office expansion, vendor ecosystems, and employee experience at scale. Career growth here is directly tied to the scale and complexity of the company. The more you can operationalize — across systems, budgets, vendors, and culture — the more ownership and influence you will earn. If you want to grow alongside a fast-scaling AI + robotics company and play a critical role in how teams operate day-to-day, this role offers outsized impact. ## About Generalist ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Generalist is a frontier AI research and product company building general-purpose intelligence for the physical world through embodied foundation models for robots. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: San Mateo, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Pete Florence (Co-Founder & CEO), Andy Zeng (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Embodied AI - **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises operating factories, warehouses, laboratories, restaurants, and logistics centers; eventually homes. - **Mission**: “Make general-purpose robots a reality. We build embodied foundation models for the physical world.” ## Products & Services - **GEN-1**: General-purpose AI model for robotics that achieves ~99% average success rate on tasks (vs. 64% for prior state-of-the-art) and completes tasks roughly 3x faster. Trained on half a million hours of real-world data collected via low-cost wearable devices. Available to early-access partners as a model or API. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/) - **GEN-0**: Previous generation model that demonstrated scaling laws in robotics. Used as the foundation for GEN-1. - **Data Collection Devices**: Proprietary low-cost wearable hardware that captures human activities at scale, enabling pretraining without large teleoperation or simulation datasets. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $128M (Series A closed March 2025; earlier seed round led by NVentures) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: NVentures (seed lead); Board Director Ellen Chisa. Series A investor not named in public data. - **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 325% YoY to 42 employees. GEN-1 model released five months after GEN-0, with production-level reliability. Early-access partnerships underway. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai) ## Competitive Advantages - **Model performance**: GEN-1 achieves 99% average success rate across tasks like kitting auto parts, folding T-shirts, packing phones – a step change from sub-70% success by previous models. - **Data efficiency**: Trained primarily on human demonstration data (wearable devices) rather than expensive robot teleoperation data; can match previous models with 10x less task-specific data. - **Algorithmic innovations**: Custom training kernels, paged attention for real-time inference, Harmonic Reasoning, and RL post-training enable improvisation and recovery from unexpected scenarios. - **Team pedigree**: Founders and key hires from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Boston Dynamics – bringing experience from ChatGPT, GPT-4, PaLM-E, RT-2, Gemini Robotics, Atlas, Spot, and Stretch. ## Strategic Focus - Current priorities: Scale GEN-1’s embodied foundation model to master more complex physical tasks, expand into economically valuable settings (manufacturing, logistics, healthcare), and build the data infrastructure needed for general-purpose robots. The company is “accelerating the next phase of factories, homes, and the broader physical world.” ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Tight-knit, research-forward environment with a mix of AI and hardware engineering. On-site presence in San Francisco (SFO) and Boston (BOS). [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist) - **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: All open positions are listed as “On-site” (no remote or hybrid options). - **Notable Perks**: Not explicitly disclosed, but the startup’s rapid growth and $128M funding suggest competitive compensation and equity. The team consists of leading roboticists and AI researchers, offering exposure to cutting-edge work. - **Engineering Culture**: Heavy emphasis on technical staff (Software Engineers in ML Infra, Robotics Controls, ML Optimization, Infrastructure; Research Scientists in pretraining and post-training). Roles include hands-on robot operation and systems building. ## Sources 1. [generalistai.com](https://generalistai.com/) 2. [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist) 3. [generalistai.com/about](https://generalistai.com/about) 4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai) 5. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/) ## Other roles at Generalist - [Research Scientist: Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-post-training-generalist-san-mateo-vrnttp54gr4z) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA - [Data Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/data-partnerships-generalist-san-mateo-tm0yccvmgxm3) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA - [Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineer-generalist-boston-74p3xtqpvs13) — Boston, MA - [Electrical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-generalist-san-mateo-x985d69q4w17) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA - [Research Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/research-assistant-generalist-san-mateo-1ahfzy22gp7s) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA - [Executive Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-generalist-san-mateo-d58q9t9a6jav) — San Mateo, CA - [Data Collection Lab Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/data-collection-lab-manager-generalist-boston-dr2gxr4h4snk) — Boston, MA - [Engineering Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-technician-generalist-san-mateo-6s93yqcagymy) — San Mateo, CA - [Robot Science Ops](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-science-ops-generalist-san-mateo-w3g9q4n8eby8) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA - [Research Scientist: Pretraining](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-pretraining-generalist-san-mateo-7n5nnpe1pwmr) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA