Location: Paris (hybrid: 3 days in office, occasional NYC trips)
Reports to: Antoine Carossio (CTO) & Tristan Kalos (CEO), jointly
Compensation: €70–90K base + up to 0.10% equity (4y vest, 1y cliff) + closure-based performance bonus (€5K–€10K)
Start date: ASAP: we hire the right person in 10 days, not 60
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About Escape
Escape is offensive security for the teams that are 100x outnumbered. We build AI agents that find and exploit vulnerabilities in modern applications, APIs, and microservices: the way a real attacker would, but at the speed of a CI pipeline.
We're a Y Combinator W23 company. We just closed an $18M Series A in March 2026 led by Balderton Capital (with Uncorrelated Ventures, IRIS, and YC following on). Our customers and partners include Zoom, Schibsted, Wiz, Pandadoc, and a growing list of teams who've stopped pretending annual pen tests are enough. We're 40 people split between Paris and NYC, scaling to 80 in the next 12 months
The product surface is real: ASM, business-logic-aware DAST, and AI Pentesting GA-ing this year. The competitive thesis is that LLMs collapsed the cost of offensive engineering by 1000x, and the companies that ship that capability into production first will own the next decade of the category. We're betting we're those companies.
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Why this role exists
We just closed our Series A. The two of us (Tristan, CEO and Antoine, CTO) are spending a meaningful chunk of every week on things we shouldn't be spending it on: vendor renewals, lawyer follow-ups, accountant questions, board-pack assembly, post-closing items, finance ops, internal sync logistics across two time zones. Each individual item is small. Together they're a tax on the work that actually compounds: product, customers, hiring, research.
We need a Chief of Staff to take that tax off our calendar. Not a strategist. Not a future Head of X. An operator who finds satisfaction in closure: the lawyer reply received, the SOC2 doc signed, the renewal saved, the board pack shipped at 10pm Sunday so Monday goes well.
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What you'll own
The brief is broad on purpose, but here's a concrete picture of week-one through month-six:
Founders' operating system (40% of your time)
You hold the second brain. Every commitment we make to investors, customers, lawyers, vendors: you track, you remind, you close.
You run the rhythm: weekly Tristan↔Antoine sync, monthly board prep, quarterly investor updates. We show up; you make sure the inputs are there.
You read every Operations Slack channel and every Notion sync. You surface the three things that actually need our attention.
Vendor, legal, accounting & finance ops (25%)
You own the relationship with our lawyers (corporate, IP, employment), our accountants, and our auditors across French SAS and US Inc. You don't pass them through to us: you handle them and surface the 5% that needs founder judgment.
You own vendor negotiations in France and US: Vanta, Auth0, Grafana, AWS, the next 20. We've left money on the table; you find it.
You own the budget reporting cadence. You don't build the budget: Tristan, Antoine and the GTM/Product/Eng leads do: but you keep it alive monthly.
You own the success of Public grants (BPI France, Crédit Impôt Recherche, etc.), in collaboration with our dedicated partners.
Board & investor cadence (15%)
You build the board pack from inputs we give you 10 days out. By month 3, you build it from inputs we give you 3 days out.
You own investor updates: monthly to Balderton/Uncorrelated/IRIS, quarterly to the broader cap table. We write the narrative; you assemble, polish, and ship.
You own post-closing items from the Series A: there's a punch list and it's not done.
Owned projects (15%)
A weekly 8-hour block that is yours alone. Founders cannot interrupt. You pick a project from a list we maintain together: vendor consolidation, US entity setup follow-through, SOC2 milestone, internal tools rollout: and you ship it.
This is non-negotiable. The role only works if you have closure that's visibly yours.
Connective tissue across the global team (5%)
You're the person Hugo (PM), Mathieu (Head of Engineering), Nadya (people & recruiting) and US Team call when they need 5 minutes of founder time and aren't getting it. You make the call: do they need it now, can it wait, can you handle it.
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What success looks like (6 months in, written before you start)
The 5-wins framework
We define five measurable wins for your first 6 months in writing on day one. Examples of what those look like (we'll finalize the exact list with you in week one):
Board cadence runs on rails: packs go out 48 hours before every board, no last-minute scramble.
Series A post-closing punch list: 100% closed.
Founder calendar audit: Antoine + Tristan each reclaim ≥6 hours/week of strategic time, measured against a baseline taken in week one.
One owned project shipped, visible to the whole company.
Vendor consolidation: ≥€80K/year saved in renegotiated or eliminated contracts.
If all five land, there's a meaningful bonus and a conversation about scope for the next 18 months: Head of Finance/Ops, Head of BizOps, or a graceful exit with a strong recommendation. We'll commit to that checkpoint in writing.
How we've designed this role to not burn you out
We've watched this seat burn people out at peer companies. Specifically:
5 measurable wins defined in writing on day one: so the work is visible, and so you have something to point at.
Protected 8-hour weekly block for owned work: founders cannot interrupt. We mean it.
External CoS peer group budget: we'll pay for Operators Guild, On Deck Chief of Staff, or equivalent. You need peers who do this job at other companies.
Explicit 18-month checkpoint: Head of Finance/Ops, Head of BizOps, or graceful exit with a strong reference. No ambiguity. No "we'll see."
Direct line to both founders, daily: you're not a layer below us. No intermediaries, no waiting for office hours.
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Your profile
Your are
3–6 years total experience. You've already done one operating cycle at a Series A or B startup: and you chose to do it again because you liked it. Not your first ops role.
Background: ex-strategy consulting (BCG / McKinsey / Bain / OW / Roland Berger) + one operating stint, OR ex-Big-4 audit/TS (Deloitte / KPMG / EY / PwC / Mazars) at Manager grade, OR you've already been a CoS / Founder's Associate at a French scale-up (Alan, Spendesk, Pennylane, Qonto, Aircall, PayFit, Swile, Shift Technology, Mirakl).
You get satisfaction from closure, not from polish. You'd rather close 8 invisible items than write one beautiful memo.
You have a personal tracking system you never need anyone else to look at. The founders forget; you don't.
You are calm in unstructured chaos. Two founders, two time zones, decisions made on Discord at 11pm: you absorb that and keep moving.
You're frugal with company money. You know the difference between thrift and false economy.
You push back when we're wrong without making it political. You don't gossip about Antoine to Tristan or vice versa.
You are based in Paris and willing to travel to NYC when necessary.
You speak French and English fluently. Comfort with French legal/tax/accounting terminology is a real advantage: half this job is in French.
You're comfortable in Excel / Google Sheets. Not modeling-fluent, but P&L, budget vs. actuals, vendor spend rollups: yes.
You are NOT
We'll be honest about who this role is wrong for, because hiring the wrong person here is expensive for everyone:
You want to "build frameworks," lead off-sites, or write strategy memos.
You're optimizing for the next title. You want this role to become "Head of X" in 6 months.
You need weekly priorities handed to you in the first month.
You want to be in the room because being in the room is the point. (You will be in the room. The point is the work, not the room.)
You're a senior consultant or principal looking for a soft landing. Too senior, too expensive, won't touch logistics.
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Compensation
Base: €70–90K depending on experience.
Equity: 0.05%–0.1% on a 4y / 1y cliff vest. Material enough that you feel ownership; not so much that we disrespect future Head-of hires.
Closure bonus: €5–10K performance bonus tied to the five measurable wins defined on day one. We reward closure because closure is the job.
BSPCE (French equity instrument): yes.
Health insurance (Alan), lunch credits (Swile), commuting, 2 days remote/week.
NYC trip on the company when relevant.
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How to apply
In your application, include:
Your LinkedIn or CV (one is enough).
One paragraph: the most invisible thing you did in your last role that made your founder's life better.
Optional: anything you want us to know that wouldn't show up on a CV.
No cover letter. No "I'm passionate about cybersecurity." We'd rather see the paragraph above. If we're interested, we will reply to your email within 5 business days, yes or no.
- Tristan & Antoine