Chief of Staff to the COO & GM of Marketplace

About the role

This role is a senior strategic operating partner to the COO and GM of Marketplace.

Leaders set direction and build the conditions for their teams to succeed. They hire, coach, and hold people accountable. Leadership work spans strategy, communication, and decision making. Effective leaders give clear context and remove obstacles for the people who report to them. Leadership roles are measured by team outcomes, retention, and delivery. Most organizations expect leaders to be visible, predictable, and generous with context.

Key facts

What you'll do

You synthesize information and prepare the COO for high-stakes conversations, including board presentations and executive reviews, ensuring decisions are grounded in clear data and framing.

You align fragmented work across Legal, Security, Marketing, Payments, Trust & Safety, Communications, Support, Design, and Product, identifying where accountability is weak and fixing breakdowns without waiting to be asked.

When cross-functional friction stalls important work, you unblock it by clarifying decision rights, convening the right people, and escalating or resolving issues as appropriate.

Requirements

You have operated at the intersection of strategy and execution in a high-velocity environment such as consulting, investment banking, or high-growth tech.

You are organized in a way that instills confidence, ensuring that nothing critical falls through the cracks for the stakeholders you support.

You think clearly under ambiguity, communicate with precision, and can build a compelling deck and its strategy in a single sitting.

You have discretion and judgment to be a trusted confidant, being direct or patient as required and earning trust through consistent integrity and excellence in your job.

You have 10+ years of relevant experience; an MBA or equivalent is strongly preferred, and prior Chief of Staff experience or a similar senior operating role is a plus.

Practical notes

The role is based in Palo Alto, with the expectation to work onsite as needed by the business.

Interview recordings may be processed with an AI-enabled tool, and you may opt out during scheduling.

Typical interview steps

Leadership hiring usually includes a strategy case, a people scenario, and a values conversation. Candidates may be asked to turn around a struggling team or plan for growth. Past results are examined closely, especially how decisions were made. Interviewers dig into specific decisions you made and their consequences. Preparing two or three decision stories with numbers and lessons is the best use of time.

Good to know

Roles of this scope typically operate at the intersection of multiple executive functions and require fluency across diverse business disciplines.

Strategic operating roles rely on judgment, pattern recognition, and concise synthesis of complex information.

High-velocity environments demand comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and clear communication under time constraints.

Cross-functional influence often succeeds through clarity of purpose, transparent decision rights, and structured alignment rituals.

Modern workforce platforms integrate product, compliance, finance, and design, so familiarity with marketplace dynamics is valuable in this type of role.

Questions to ask

Good questions to ask the employer in the interview: what does success look like in the first six months, how is the team structured, what is the current biggest challenge, and how are decisions made. Asking about growth paths and the review process is also well received. Employers expect questions, and good ones show preparation.

Career growth

Leadership careers move from manager to senior manager, director, and executive roles. Each step adds more scope and more responsibility for outcomes. The best leaders keep learning how to delegate, communicate, and decide. Leadership careers reward a record of building and developing people. The higher you go, the more your communication shapes the whole organization.