next play on campus 11/13

office hours, runway spotlight, gumroad internship

✨ Hey there - this is next play on campus, where we send under-the-radar opportunities for students to help them figure out what’s next.

We recently launched “next play office hours” - we have dozens of people from the next play network—everyone from startups executives to staff operators to serial founders—volunteering their time to possibly try and help you on your career journey. It’s free - you can apply to get access to office hours here (space is limited as this is an entirely free/volunteer-led initiative).

Spotlight:

What is it really like to work at the fastest-growing companies? We try to answer that question in our Spotlight section. Today’s spotlight is on Runway Financial. Thanks to the Runway team for sharing behind-the-scenes details and supporting next play.

Much of the inspiration for Siqi Chen (their founder/CEO) in starting Runway came from personal experience that led him to asking the question: “Why hasn't dealing with financials in a company changed at all? In a world where Figma and Notion exist, that seems like an opportunity. And so we started Runway.”

Here’s what we learned from talking to people at Runway:

• Giving a shit is their number one cultural value. “Give a shit -- it shows up in all the little details. An intrinsic need to make the product better (found a bug? fix it). A customer has a problem? Whoever is online even if not on the CX team will respond and try to unblock them. The people team planning a company offsite? They make sure it is unique, memorable, and accounts for the various people preferences and backgrounds. Hiring a new candidate? Let's make sure they have enough time and space to ask questions and learn about the company. Give a shit is really hard to teach. It is the fire within each of us to have impact.”

• There’s a culture focused on self-improvement. “I felt empowered to do the nerve-wracking thing of asking our CEO if I could give him some personal feedback. He said yes, we had a more direct and honest conversation than we'd ever had, he adjusted his behavior, and he was extremely appreciative that I'd been confident enough to bring it up. This is true leadership to me.”

• They place a lot of emphasis on transparency. “The leadership team is also extremely transparent, more so than I've ever seen. Every year, we participate in a culture survey with an outside party which includes specific questions about the leadership team. Results are compiled and then shared in full with the team to evaluate what can be done better. I love that we do this and think it's a huge effort in building trust.”

• Many teammates really empathize with the problem - some were even customers before joining. “I had the benefit of being an early Customer of Runway when I was running Finance at a different startup. I saw first hand how using Runway helps companies make better decisions. I loved the product and the team so much that I decided to join the Crew!”

• They are inspired by the complexity of the problems they need to solve. “The design problems and philosophies at Runway are fascinating. We’re building something as powerful and flexible as Excel, but also as intuitive and easy-to-use as Notion… So what are the right abstractions and primitives to expose to the user? The design questions that arise when building what we call “a tool for thought,” which allows users to easily express their thinking in Runway, have been a ton of fun!”

• There is a lot more you can learn about Runway and the way they work here.

Runway is hiring for roles across engineering and go-to-market (which includes a range of positions, for example: account executive, customer experience manager, and growth manager). You can learn more and apply here.

Early teams:

• Sahil from Gumroad is hiring a summer intern. You can learn more here and apply by emailing sahil@gumroad.com with your personal website, some of your proudest achievements, and a joke.

• Jose from Method is building a financial connectivity API for consumer liabilities. They are hiring a GTM growth associate. You can learn more and apply here.

• Insa from Offbeast is making plant-based steaks. They are hiring an intern to work directly with the founder. You can learn more by messaging the founder here.

• Emily from Corgi is hiring a sales and marketing intern. They are building an AI insurance company. You can learn more and apply here.

• Shawn from Penciled is hiring a founding software engineer. They are building a platform to help physical therapists fill cancelled appointments. You can learn more and apply here.

• Vivian from Landed is building a video-based marketplace for companies looking to hire. They are hiring a marketing coordinator new grad. You can learn more and apply here.

• Maidul from Infisical is building an open source secret manager used by tens of thousands of developers. They are hiring an enterprise account executive new grad. you can learn more and apply here.

• Monik from Toma is building a voice ai platform for the automotive industry. They are hiring a founding junior technical staff member new grad. You can learn more and apply here.

Scaling companies:

• William from Column is hiring a payment operations new grad. They are building a developer infrastructure bank. You can learn more and apply here.

• Parafin is hiring a new grad software engineer. They are building a platform that helps merchants grow their businesses. You can learn more and apply here.

• Bubble is hiring a technical support specialist new grad. They are building a no-code app builder. You can learn more and apply here.

• Scale AI is building an infrastructure platform for AI companies. They are hiring strategic projects associates. You can learn more and apply here.

• Ramp is hiring a new grad to work as a customer experience agent. They are also hiring a sales development rep. You can learn more and apply here and here.

• Pitchbook is hiring a summer data analyst. You can learn more and apply here.

• Coinbase is hiring a data science intern. You can learn more and apply here.

• BCG X, from Boston Consulting Group, is hiring an AI intern. You can learn more and apply here.

• Roblox is hiring associate product management interns. You can learn more and apply here.

• Whatnot is hiring a new grad software engineer. You can learn more and apply here.

• Github is hiring a product management intern. You can learn more and apply here.

• Stripe is hiring a software engineering intern. You can learn more and apply here.

Investing and other:

• Forum Ventures is hiring an investment associate. You can apply here.

• Point72 Ventures is hiring an investment associate to focus on AI. You can apply here.

• Upfront Ventures is hiring an investment associate to focus on data/ML. You can apply here.

• Antler is hiring an MBA intern based in London. You can apply here.

• Motion Ventures is hiring a portfolio an ecosystem intern. You can apply here.

Note:

• If you’d like to be connected with more startups, make sure to join next play’s main network (form takes <3 minutes to fill out).