Operations Lead (AI Lab)

Operations Lead (AI Lab)

Build the Operating System Behind the World's Leading Applied AI Company for Real Estate

Location: London (preferred), Dubai or San Francisco

Reports to: Founder & CEO

About Smart Bricks

Smart Bricks is building the future of AI for real estate.

Every year, trillions of dollars are invested across residential, commercial and alternative real estate using fragmented systems, disconnected data and manual workflows. We're building an AI-native platform that helps investors, developers, lenders, governments and Fortune 500 companies source opportunities, underwrite investments, perform due diligence and manage portfolios using AI.

Alongside our software platform, we're building an Applied AI Lab that works directly with some of the world's largest real estate organisations to redesign complex workflows using AI. Every customer engagement generates institutional knowledge. Every deployment strengthens the platform. Every improvement compounds across every future customer.

We've raised over $5 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and are backed by some of the world's leading technology ecosystems, including Techstars, Google, NVIDIA and Microsoft through their AI and startup programmes.

Our Founder is a Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur and an Andreessen Horowitz Scout, helping identify and back the next generation of AI founders globally.

We're building our founding leadership team across London, Dubai and San Francisco. Our London team is based at Balderton Capital, one of Europe's leading venture capital firms, giving us the opportunity to work alongside some of Europe's most ambitious founders, investors and technology companies.

This is a chance to join at the earliest stage of building what we believe will be one of the world's leading Applied AI companies for real estate.

Why exceptional people join us

🚀 Raised $5M+, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

🤝 Backed by Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Techstars

🏢 London office based at Balderton Capital

🌍 Building across London, Dubai and San Francisco

🏆 Founder recognised as Forbes 30 Under 30 and an Andreessen Horowitz Scout

🤖 Building Applied AI with leading institutional real estate organisations

Why this role?

This isn't a traditional operations role. You won't manage internal admin or maintain existing processes.

You'll design how the company operates. As our customer base grows, from global investors and developers to governments and enterprise organisations, the quality of our execution becomes a competitive advantage. Your job is to keep Smart Bricks moving at the speed of a startup while delivering with the rigour the world's largest real estate organisations expect. You'll work across every part of the business, from enterprise delivery and strategic initiatives to recruiting, finance and international expansion, building the systems that let everyone else do their best work. If something is slowing the company down, you'll probably end up owning it.

What you'll own

The company operating system. Design and continuously improve how Smart Bricks operates, creating clarity without creating bureaucracy:

• Company operating cadence and quarterly planning
• Executive business reviews and cross-functional planning
• Company OKRs and decision-making frameworks
• Internal reporting and operating dashboards

Applied AI operations. Own the operational engine behind the Applied AI Lab, so every deployment becomes easier, faster and more repeatable than the last:

• Enterprise customer onboarding and delivery operations
• Resource and capacity planning
• Customer success operations and delivery quality
• Internal tooling and operational reporting

Strategic initiatives. Lead the projects that don't belong to any single department, moving wherever the highest-leverage problem is:

• Opening new international offices and scaling the Applied AI Lab
• Launching enterprise customers and strategic partnerships
• Internal AI adoption, operational due diligence and organisational redesign

Internal infrastructure. Partner with every leadership function to build scalable systems across finance, recruiting, legal, people operations, procurement, vendor management, knowledge management and internal AI tooling, so the business scales without adding unnecessary complexity.

A high-performance organisation. Work directly with the Founder and leadership team to improve how the company executes across leadership planning, hiring, goal setting, performance reviews, cross-functional communication and organisational design. The output of every leader should improve because you joined.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 12 months you'll have:

• Built the operating framework behind the Applied AI Lab.
• Established a company operating cadence that can support global growth.
• Reduced operational bottlenecks across every department.
• Supported multiple enterprise AI deployments end to end.
• Stood up company-wide planning and reporting.
• Freed the leadership team to spend significantly more time on strategic work.
• Success won't be measured by how many processes you run. It'll be measured by how much faster and more reliably the whole company executes because you joined.

Who we're looking for

We're looking for builders who create structure where none exists.

Specifically, you'll likely have:

• 7 to 12 years across Strategy & Operations, Founder's Office, Chief of Staff, General Management or high-growth technology companies.
• Built operational systems inside a fast-scaling startup or scaleup through a period of rapid growth, and seen first-hand where companies break as they scale.
• Led cross-functional strategic initiatives and worked directly with founders or executive teams.
• Run planning cycles, OKRs and business reviews, and built scalable operational processes from first principles.
• Strong commercial and analytical judgement: comfortable with budgets, capacity models and data-led decisions.
• Recruited exceptional talent and improved execution across multiple functions.
• A degree from a strong institution, ideally with a track record of top academic and professional performance.

Experience in enterprise software or AI is highly desirable, and experience working with enterprise customers is a significant advantage. Experience in real estate isn't required.

Compensation & Benefits

We believe exceptional people should share in the value they create. You'll receive a highly competitive salary and a meaningful equity package, private healthcare, flexible working, an annual learning and conference budget, access to the latest AI models and developer tooling, and a seat in our London office at Balderton Capital, alongside one of Europe's leading VC ecosystems.

How We Work

We hold ourselves to exceptionally high standards. We think like owners, solve problems proactively, move quickly without compromising quality, care deeply about execution, build systems that scale, communicate clearly and stay relentlessly curious. We optimise for execution, not bureaucracy.

Why Join

We move insanely fast, with real rigour and standards, to build the company that redefines how AI works for real assets.

You'll work directly with the Founder and founding leadership team to shape how Smart Bricks scales globally, from how we deliver enterprise AI projects to how we hire, plan, execute and expand into new markets. The systems you build won't just make the company more efficient, they'll enable some of the world's largest real estate organisations to adopt AI faster and at greater scale.

If you're the type to get out of bed to build organisations that execute exceptionally well, in this generation and the ones after, Smart Bricks is the place for you. We'd love to talk.