Founding Growth

San Francisco, United StatesOn-site

Responsibilities

- Build retention systems: Keep top contributors engaged through competitions, leaderboards, recognition, and community dynamics.
- Design community infrastructure: Promote contributors to trainers/reviewers, run challenges, and make the ecosystem self-reinforcing.
- Be data-driven: Build contributor lifecycle tracking, run cohort analyses, and design A/B tests for engagement and retention features.

Shipd is our gamified data collection platform where contributors take on quests, bounties, and challenges that feel like an engaging and addictive experience. 16,000+ engineers have signed up organically, and now we need a Founding Growth hire to scale this community into the engine that powers frontier AI labs.
WHAT YOU’LL DO - Scale the contributor base: Recruit specialized talent (e.g., cybersecurity, ML, domain experts) through creative, non-traditional channels.
Experience growing two-sided marketplaces, consumer apps with high friction, developer products, creator economies, or gig/freelancer platforms (supply-side bias).
CHARACTERISTICS WE’RE LOOKING FOR - Scrappy, creative executor who thrives on unconventional channels and tactics. - Comfortable working 70+ hours in-office with high ownership. - Equity-motivated, excited to build a foundational system for AI progress. - Fast mover: prefers testing ideas live over long planning cycles. NICE TO HAVE -
Experience in gamification, hackathons, or developer competitions. - Background in community-led platforms or marketplaces with strong supply-side dynamics. - Familiarity with QA systems, contributor assessments, or technical training funnels.

Your mission: solve the supply-side scaling problem --getting more sign ups, convert signups into engaged, retained contributors, build systems that multiply output, and create the “data flywheel” where contributors are so motivated they bring their friends.
- Convert signups into active contributors: Build onboarding funnels, training systems, and engagement loops for complex, hours-long tasks.
- Engineer incentives: Go beyond payments—design viral referral mechanics, gamification, and status-driven rewards.
- Scale operations: Develop 0→1 playbooks, hire community managers, and handle white-glove delivery for lab contracts while automating long-term systems.
- A track record of building engaged communities— developer ecosystems, or competitive programming platforms.
- Comfort with data analysis (cohorts, funnels, retention metrics) and building lightweight systems.
- Strong product sense for human motivation and psychology; you think in systems of incentives.
- Willingness to work hands-on: sourcing talent, running community experiments, and jumping into ops.
NOT A FIT IF - You’re a traditional marketer focused on ads and brand campaigns. - You’ve only worked in big tech with large budgets and teams. - You don’t understand developer/technical talent motivation. - You need structured processes and research cycles before acting.