Chief of Staff in London, England at Squid

About Squid (www.squid.energy)

AI and data centres are booming, electrification is accelerating, and trillions in generation, storage, and connection projects are queued - but the real bottleneck is the grid.

Grid planning and operations are becoming a national-scale systems problem: complex network models, messy legacy data, strict governance, overloaded teams, and high-stakes decisions that affect real infrastructure.

Squid is building the agentic modelling platform for power grids: a versioned, auditable source of truth where network models, data, changes, assumptions, and decisions can be tracked - and where humans and AI agents can safely work together.

We unify legacy planning models, operational data, and grid workflows into software that helps teams run checks, compare models, explain changes, validate assumptions, and move faster without losing engineering rigour.

Based in London, Squid is backed by premier investors like Y Combinator and partners with industry leaders including National Grid and Northern Powergrid. 🦑

About the role

Pay Range: £60k-£140k (salary + equity), based in London, UK.

We are hiring a Chief of Staff to work directly with Squid’s founders.

You will build and run the operating system around the founders, taking ownership of work that currently spans company operations, finance, hiring, customer operations and board and investor preparation.

This is a senior, hands-on generalist role. You will move between strategic priorities and detailed execution, helping Squid operate with reliable information, clear ownership and proportionate processes.

This is a high-ownership role based in our central London office, with the opportunity to shape how the company operates as it grows.

What you'll do

• Establish clear weekly and quarterly rhythms for priorities, decisions, risks and follow-through.
• Maintain a reliable view of company actions, ownership and cross-functional commitments.
• Prepare founder, board and adviser materials and maintain the underlying records.
• Maintain Squid’s cash forecast, runway model, budget and monthly management information.
• Coordinate bookkeeping, payroll, tax, insurance, legal providers and UK and US corporate administration.
• Oversee invoices, expenses, procurement, approvals and core company records.
• Run the operating side of hiring, including candidate pipelines, interview coordination, offers and onboarding.
• Maintain simple people processes covering equipment, access, policies, joiners and leavers.
• Support strategic customer operations, including meeting preparation, account tracking and follow-through.
• Coordinate procurement, security, legal, data-sharing and deployment dependencies around customer accounts.
• Lead important cross-company initiatives that do not yet belong to a dedicated function.

Qualifications

You do not need to meet every requirement. We are looking for a highly capable generalist who has made complex and ambiguous work reliable.

You may be a strong fit if you have:

• Experience in an early-stage startup, consulting, investing, finance, business operations or a similarly demanding environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to turn complexity into clear decisions and actions.
• Confidence working with cash forecasts, budgets, management information and basic commercial analysis.
• Sound judgement, discretion and close attention to detail.
• A strong record of following through and anticipating risks across multiple workstreams.
• The ability to switch comfortably between strategic work and detailed operational execution.
• A willingness to do important operational work personally while building systems that can scale.
• The ability to coordinate specialist providers and understand their outputs without needing to be a qualified accountant or lawyer.