About Sesame

Sesame believes in a future where computers are lifelike - with the ability to see, hear, and collaborate with us in ways that feel natural and human. With this vision, we're designing a new kind of computer, focused on making voice agents part of our daily lives. Our team brings together founders from Oculus and Ubiquity6, alongside proven leaders from Meta, Google, and Apple, with deep expertise spanning hardware and software. Join us in shaping a future where computers truly come alive.

About the Role

We’re looking for a sharp, proactive Executive Assistant to support our CEO and Head of Operations. As a key partner to leadership, you’ll manage complex schedules, coordinate high-level communications, and ensure seamless operations in a fast-moving environment. The ideal candidate thrives under pressure, anticipates needs before they arise, and builds strong relationships across teams and external partners. If you’re highly organized, adaptable, and excel at making things run smoothly, we want to hear from you!

Key Competencies:

• Highly Autonomous: Able to navigate complex, ambiguous situations with minimal direction or hand-holding.

• Proactive & Agile: Stays steps ahead of the executives and the team; pivots seamlessly when priorities shift to ensure everyone remains aligned and on track.

• Strong Academic/Intellectual Foundation: Highly educated, with critical-thinking skills to process information quickly and strategically.

• Adaptive Communicator: Highly adaptable to varying situational dynamics, diverse working styles, and cross-functional backgrounds.

• Strategic Relationship Builder: Focuses on cultivating deep, meaningful relationships across the organization rather than just managing transactional interactions.

Responsibilities:

• Calendar & Scheduling: Manage the CEO’s complex calendar, coordinate meetings, prioritize appointments, and optimize time efficiency.

• Meeting Preparation & Operational Foresight: Organize materials, draft agendas, and ensure all necessary information is readily available. Anticipate scheduling conflicts and proactively implement solutions before they impact leadership.

• Executive Partnership: Serve as a trusted partner to executive leadership, helping maximize efficiency, productivity, and organizational effectiveness.

• Communication Management: Act as a primary point of contact for internal and external stakeholders, handling communications with professionalism, discretion, and sound judgment.

• Travel Coordination: Plan and manage detailed travel itineraries, including flights, accommodations, and logistics, proactively addressing any issues.

• Confidentiality & Professionalism: Handle sensitive information with the utmost discretion and professionalism.

• Operational Support: Partner with the Office Manager to ensure seamless executive support and business operations.

• Project Assistance: Support key initiatives by collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive efficiency and execution.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience supporting C-suite executives, founders, and senior leadership teams, particularly in high-growth startup environments.

• Proven track record of providing strategic executive support beyond traditional calendar management.

• Demonstrated ability to anticipate needs, exercise sound judgment, and independently solve problems.

• Exceptional organizational skills with meticulous attention to detail and follow-through.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills to build rapport across teams and with external partners.

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and adapting quickly in a dynamic environment. Ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.

• Expert user of Google Workspace, Slack, and modern business productivity tools.

• A highly educated background preferred, with a focus on supporting startups.

• Experience in project management is a plus.
  

Location: Full-time in-office with flexibility in San Francisco, CA or New York City, NY.

Sesame is committed to a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered. We welcome all qualified applicants, embracing diversity in race, gender, identity, orientation, ability, and more. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Contact careers@sesame.com for assistance.

Full-time Employee Benefits:

• 401 (k) max employer match: 3.5% of compensation

• 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental benefits for you and your dependents

• Unlimited PTO and sick time

• Flexible spending account with employer matching up to $1,650/year (medical FSA)

• Guardian Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• Opportunity to share in the company's success with competitive stock options

Benefits do not apply to contingent/contract workers.

About Sesame

Sesame believes in a future where computers are lifelike - with the ability to see, hear, and collaborate with us in ways that feel natural and human. With this vision, we're designing a new kind of computer, focused on making voice agents part of our daily lives. Our team brings together founders from Oculus and Ubiquity6, alongside proven leaders from Meta, Google, and Apple, with deep expertise spanning hardware and software. Join us in shaping a future where computers truly come alive.

About the Role
We’re looking for a People Lead to help build the organization that will take Sesame through its next stage of growth. This is a highly hands-on leadership role for someone who can build the People function while also serving as a trusted partner to the leadership team on decisions that shape our company.

You’ll help us scale thoughtfully without losing what makes Sesame special: high talent density, strong ownership, fast decision-making, and a culture where people do their best work. You’ll build the systems and team we need to support significant growth, while continuously evolving how we hire, develop, lead, and work together, including using AI to fundamentally improve the way the People function operates.

Responsibilities:

• Build and lead a strong People foundation. Set the strategy and operating model for the People function, build and develop a high-performing team, and establish the infrastructure needed to support Sesame as we scale. Partner closely with Recruiting and leaders across the company to improve workforce planning and employee experience. Ensure our People Operations infrastructure scales with the company, including HR systems, payroll, benefits, immigration, onboarding, policies, compliance, employee relations, and People data.

• Help shape the organization. Work with the leadership team on org design, team structure, leadership roles, succession planning, and other critical decisions as the company evolves.

• Make managers better. Build practical approaches to goal-setting, feedback, performance, development, promotions, and accountability that help managers lead effectively and give employees clarity on what great looks like.

• Own compensation and rewards. Develop and evolve our compensation philosophy, leveling, salary ranges, equity practices, benefits, and performance check-ins in partnership with leadership.

• Shape and protect Sesame’s culture. Translate our values into the everyday experience of working here - from how we hire and onboard to how we communicate, recognize great work, make difficult decisions, and hold ourselves accountable.

• Be a trusted advisor. Bring sound judgment, candor, and a strong understanding of the business to sensitive people and organizational decisions. You’ll be expected to challenge thinking when needed, not simply execute requests.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of progressive People leadership experience, with meaningful experience across areas such as People Operations, HRBP, and organizational development.

• Experience building and scaling People functions in fast-moving technology companies, ideally during periods of significant growth and organizational change.

• Deep understanding of organization design, performance management, compensation, employee relations, and U.S. employment practices.

• Strong business judgment and the ability to operate as a thought partner to founders and senior leaders on complex people and organizational decisions.

• A builder’s mindset - you’re comfortable creating the strategy and then rolling up your sleeves to make it happen.

• Ability to operate at both altitude and detail: thinking about the organization we need a year from now while solving the problem sitting in front of you today.

• High standards for talent, leadership, and execution, paired with the empathy and self-awareness required to build a healthy, high-performing organization.

• Genuine curiosity about AI and a point of view on how it will change the way People teams and companies operate.

• Willingness to work four days a week in the office and be highly engaged with the team in person.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in AI, hardware, or another technically complex or rapidly evolving industry.

• Experience leading People at a venture-backed startup through rapid growth.

• Experience scaling organizations across multiple locations or integrating international employment practices.

• Experience using AI to meaningfully improve recruiting, People Operations, employee experience, or organizational effectiveness.

Sesame is committed to a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered. We welcome all qualified applicants, embracing diversity in race, gender, identity, orientation, ability, and more. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Contact careers@sesame.com for assistance.

Full-time Employee Benefits:

• 401 (k) max employer match: 3.5% of compensation

• 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental benefits for you and your dependents

• Unlimited PTO and sick time

• Flexible spending account with employer matching up to $1,650/year (medical FSA)

• Guardian Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• Opportunity to share in the company's success with competitive stock options

Benefits do not apply to contingent/contract workers.

About Sesame

Sesame believes in a future where computers are lifelike - with the ability to see, hear, and collaborate with us in ways that feel natural and human. With this vision, we're designing a new kind of computer, focused on making voice agents part of our daily lives. Our team brings together founders from Oculus and Ubiquity6, alongside proven leaders from Meta, Google, and Apple, with deep expertise spanning hardware and software. Join us in shaping a future where computers truly come alive.

About the Role

Sesame is building a wearable AI hardware device that brings our voice companion into the physical world. We're standing up our hardware quality function from the ground up, and we're looking for our first dedicated Hardware Test Automation Engineer to build the automation backbone for the program. You'll design and own an automated test rig, a rack of devices wired into our CI/CD pipeline that, on every firmware change, builds, flashes, runs the test suite, and generates reports automatically. You'll establish nightly stability runs, weekly stress runs, and long-duration audio sessions, and you'll build the live performance and stress dashboard that becomes the team's shared source of truth for quality. Your metrics will gate releases and back the performance story we tell investors and customers.

This is a high-ownership, high-visibility role at the firmware/wireless/hardware boundary, on a small team that moves fast. You'll partner closely with the firmware team and our hands-on platform tester, and you'll have visibility and authority across both the firmware and the testbed so the two are built to cooperate.

Initial focus (first ~60 days):

• Stand up an automated test framework driven from a programmable Bluetooth central (Android, iOS, or a Pi-based rig, whatever fits), firmware-first then integration-first; even if early runs are short, get the foundation in place before it scales.

• Establish nightly (sanity/stability) and weekly (stress) automated runs, with extended weekend runs for long-duration audio sessions (e.g., 5-hour and 18-hour using synthetic data).

• Begin a live performance/stress dashboard: A2DP/throughput, BT link duration, BT latency, battery life, firmware crash counts, and regression flags.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and own an automated hardware test rig integrated with CI/CD (build → flash → run → report) for the device.

• Implement throughput/bandwidth, connectivity stress tests (e.g., iPerf, A2DP/AVRCP), including sustained-throughput, connection-stability/range testing, and simulated degraded-connectivity scenarios.

• Build API-level tests (easier to automate than full end-to-end iOS flows) covering throughput, sustained load, and crash detection.

• Run long-duration audio session testing (multi-hour, synthetic data) and battery/thermal performance characterization (including full discharge cycling).

• Build and maintain a live performance & stress dashboard with defined safety thresholds and target ("high-achieving") benchmarks; automatically flag regressions.

• Develop diagnostic tooling and support automated bug triage for hardware/firmware issues.

• Provide daily automation summaries and updates; support ad hoc/cherry-picked test runs when the team needs targeted coverage.

• Partner with firmware (and the QA coordinator) to define what is automated vs. manual, API vs. integrated, and which platform drives the rig.

Required Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience building hardware/embedded test automation and integrating it into CI/CD (automated flashing, execution, and reporting).

• Solid wireless/networking fundamentals: Bluetooth audio (A2DP/AVRCP), BLE, and throughput testing (e.g., iPerf). You understand what to test, not just how to automate.

• Strong scripting/programming (e.g., Python) and the ability to build harnesses and dashboards from scratch.

• Experience defining test plans, metrics, and pass/fail thresholds from real data.

• Comfort operating in an early-stage, prototype hardware environment with limited units and evolving specs.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience owning an automation testbed for a shipping consumer hardware product (wearables, audio devices, smart cameras, IoT).

• Performance instrumentation experience: latency, sustained-throughput, IPC/cycle-count, and thread/core-level tracing on embedded/multi-core platforms.

• Familiarity with Qualcomm chipsets and tooling (e.g., DSP framework, PyDebug) and the realities of vendor bug turnaround.

• Experience automating from a programmable Bluetooth central: Android, iOS, a Pi-based rig, or similar; bonus for breadth across more than one.

• Battery and thermal test methodology.

• Experience with sensor/IMU testing and creative physical test setups for connectivity/range.

Sesame is committed to a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered. We welcome all qualified applicants, embracing diversity in race, gender, identity, orientation, ability, and more. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Contact careers@sesame.com for assistance.

Full-time Employee Benefits: 

• 401 (k) max employer match: 3.5% of compensation

• 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental benefits for you and your dependents

• Unlimited PTO and sick time

• Flexible spending account with employer matching up to $1,650/year (medical FSA)

• Guardian Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

• Opportunity to share in the company's success with competitive stock options

Benefits do not apply to contingent/contract workers.