Founding Marketplace Operations Lead

Location: San Francisco, CA or Phoenix, AZ (In-person) | Seniority: Founding Operator | Comp: Meaningful Founding Equity

Overview EQL Tech has been exclusively retained to recruit a Founding Marketplace Operations Lead for a high-growth, mission-driven fintech startup.

This company is building the commercial infrastructure for the $900B US Public Education budget. As states shift toward family-controlled Education Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), this platform acts as the financial rail allowing parents to direct an average of $7.5k per child toward the education services they choose.

With $16M raised from top-tier VCs, the team is composed of elite engineers and operators from Goldman Sachs, Stripe, Microsoft, and SpaceX.

The Role You will own the economics and vendor partnerships of a pre-category education marketplace. This is a "playbook from scratch" role combining commercial negotiation, deep data analysis, and community trust.

• Analyze Spend Data: Dig into real transaction data to identify categories and purchase flows that matter most by frequency, volume, and margin opportunity.
• SQL Mastery: You must be able to independently access and interpret underlying transaction data to defend your category thesis.
• Category Strategy: Decide who to partner with and why - from local micro-schools to national enterprise vendors like Amazon and Target.
• Negotiate Agreements: Structure commercial deals and commission logic that improve company margin and leverage over time.
• Steer Volume: Influence spend through product and ops (preferred vendors, discovery, faster approvals) without degrading family trust.
• High-Stakes Compliance: Account for evolving ESA eligibility rules across different states in your roadmap.