next play on campus 10/30
BRM spotlight, Coinbase internship, Paypal Ventures MBA intern
Hey, this is next play on campus, where we send under-the-radar opportunities for students to help them figure out what’s next.
Reminder that—just because a company is not explicitly hiring for a role, does not mean they will not hire you. Here’s a guide to getting hired (for full time, internships, or contract work) that may be helpful.
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 BRM. Thanks to the BRM team for sharing behind-the-scenes details and supporting next play.
BRM is a tool that helps companies buy software and manage their vendors. “There is this weird, very inefficient song and dance that buyers and sellers engage in. Everyone just says: “well it’s always been done this way.” But we at BRM think there’s an alternative that’ll make all sides better off—and that’s what we’ve been building.”
Here’s what we learned from talking to people at BRM:
An engineer on their team says they spend at least ~80% of their time actually coding. “There are very few unnecessary distractions. We do not have some complicated project management framework. We just talk briefly in the morning, plan what we want to do, and then everyone just focuses on getting things done.”
“We want BRM to be a place where you can be the best version of yourself—when you first start out at the company, you sit down with Cuddy, our CEO, and he works with you to figure out a personal career plan. It’s not a permanent thing, but it’s the sort of thing we try to help you think about: what would progress look like over the next 5 years? 10? And how can BRM help you with that?” BRM will also let you expense any book that helps you perform well at your job.
Multiple people commented on appreciating how uniquely direct teammates are with feedback. “People can just say what they think and that makes it a lot easier to get things done. People are respectful, yes, but we don’t have to worry so much about protecting our egos. We can just be real, which is easier because we are all in person.” This realness often leads to serendipitous ideas which are near impossible to find over structured Zoom meetings.
“We take our work seriously, but don’t take ourselves too seriously!” They have a weekly board game night and they also host an annual Oktoberfest Party complete with brats, beer, and schnitzel. They invite customers, investors, candidates, friends, and family. “To ensure the festive spirit all teammates are provided with a Lederhosen or Dirndl budget.”
“I have been a part of many amazing teams,” Cuddy says. “From a championship winning Stanford football team to really fast growing companies like RelateIQ, Sourcegraph, and Carta -- in building BRM we’ve really had the opportunity to thoughtfully choose how we construct our culture. We want to take the best attributes, and traditions from the greatest organizations, and make them uniquely BRM––a culture we’ve always wished to work at.
We collected dozens of other unique details. You can read more about them here.
BRM is now growing quickly and hiring for many roles across the organization (everything from sales to engineering to operations). “Things are changing rather quickly -- every month it feels like we have to play Tetris in the office with our desks as we are running out of space and adding new people.” You can reach out here: join@brm.ai.
Opportunities:
Looking to meet collaborators? Co-founders? People to work on projects with? Consider subscribing to our main next play newsletter (we send out more curated people, events, and opportunities).
Early teams:
Akash from Nucleus is building AI search across sales calls for product marketing teams. They are hiring a marketing intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Holmusk’s mission is to transform the lives of people with behavioral health disorders through evidence-driven medicine. They are hiring a data science intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Neil from Stably is building an e2e test automation platform. They are hiring a software engineering intern. You can learn more and apply here.
James from Odys Aviation is building a next generation vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. They are hiring a motion planning and controls intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Mirella from Output Biosciences is trying to build a foundation model for systems biology. They are hiring a machine learning research intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Scaling companies:
Jesse from Coinbase is hiring interns for the Base team. You can learn more in this thread here.
Wealth Simple is the largest fintech company in Canada. They are hiring a finance intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Insomniac Games made games like Spider Man and Ratchet and Clank. They are hiring a project management intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Visa is hiring a product management AI intern for summer 2025. You can learn more and apply here.
Playstation is hiring a software engineering intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Investing and other:
HOF Capital is hiring a junior/mid-level investor. You can learn more and apply here.
Headline is looking for consumer venture scouts. You can learn more and apply here.
Merge is a club for anyone who has received a “micro grant.” They also give out $100 to $1000 grants. You can learn more here.
Jonathan from Connexa Capital is hiring an associate. You can learn more and apply here.
Mana Ventures is hiring an associate. They are an investment syndicate with 6,000+ LPs on AngelList that has deployed $140 million into 200+ companies. You can reach out here: morgan@manaventures.vc.
Allocator One is hiring an analyst. They are a venture capital fund that funds other venture capital funds. You can apply here.
Paypal Ventures is hiring an MBA intern. You can learn more and apply here.
Backing Minds is hiring a visiting analyst/intern for spring 2025. You can learn more and apply here.
Note:
You may like free ideas—we’ll send you free ideas every week. You can read the first edition and subscribe here.
Would you join us for a virtual conversation? We’re thinking of hosting an “office hours style” Q&A with Ben and other subject matter experts to hopefully help you figure out what’s next (whether that be projects or joining a company). Respond to this email if particularly interested and we’ll be sure to include you.
Let us know if you have any feedback - hi@nextplay.so.