Saltwater Is Hiring!

2019 is going to be a big year for Saltwater.

We’ve had a full year of investing behind us in 2018, mostly early stage / growth deals, and we’re very excited about our investments. The new rounds are coming in already, and we’re feeling the small, but ultimately, meaningless ego boosts of “mark-ups.” Although the macro view of the US economy is “interesting,” the founders we’ve backed are driving right through the chaos and building some amazing businesses.

We have a healthy pipeline of deals coming in on the Partner Equity side, and we will be patient but hopeful as we diligence a number of new companies. We are confident that while the US economy still shows some solid fundamentals, there will be bearish times ahead, which will create very interesting acquisition and majority investment opportunities for us. Companies who were previously keen to raise big venture rounds may be looking to de-risk, or want a longer-term, patient capital partner that is unique in the market. We’ve got it.

Our investments are going well and we are continuing to learn a lot about how to find and fund great companies, but we have one big itch that we just can’t scratch. We want to build. We have problems that we can’t find the right tool for, and we have ideas on how to solve them that we think the market will like, and pay for. It’s a market we love spending time with, investors and CEO’s.

So, what are we building?

Project Reef:

We’re building an investment portfolio management tool that will support your everyday investor — angels, mom & pops, friends of the founder, and some venture capital firms. It will play an important role in investment decision-making, deal flow management, company performance tracking, and investor-company communications, all with a goal of making the lives of investors and the CEOs of their portfolio companies happier. Apply to learn more about the product.

So, WE’RE HIRING. We’re a tech company! We’re building our first full-time, internal technology team. The roles we’re hiring are below and we’d love for you to apply here: jobs@saltwater.com

Please send us: (1) the cover letter outlining why you’d like to work at Saltwater & why your skill sets make you right for our team. (2) Your resume, although we put more emphasis on what you will and can build for us than what you did, we’d love to know more about where you learned those skills.

Technology Lead, Saltwater

Summary:

Saltwater is the family office of Ryan Graves, the former SVP of Global Operations and first employee of Uber. At Saltwater, we invest in technology and consumer businesses that we believe in. We also incubate our own software businesses when we identify an unfulfilled need and have the passion to build it ourselves. We are a small, closely-knit team, who cares as much about how we operate, and who we work with, as we do about what we build.

We are building out of first internal technology team and looking for a hands-on, full-stack, software engineer to be a critical partner — full-time employee #2/3 — in all areas of our small team.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the engineering team for internally incubated software products and tools

  • Own end-to-end software development for Project Reef (our yet to be named primary product at Saltwater), our investment portfolio management software and investment decision optimization tool

  • Lead the development of any other internal technical tools that will help the team be more efficient or effective

• Evaluate the technical aspects of potential investments

  • Support the investment process for any technology businesses we acquire under our Partner Equity model

  • Structure and execute technical audits to better understand the quality of a company’s tech stack

Requirements:

• Full-stack engineering skill set (server-side, web, and mobile)

• Clear, concise communicator – as a distributed team, this is incredibly important

• Always willing to take the initiative without being told to do so

• Willing to get your hands dirty – as a lean team, it’s the only way

• Focused on results, not just the appearance of results

• Willing to help build a team if necessary, but an aversion to overly large teams

• Happy to work remotely and independently at times

• Familiarity with financial services / investing preferred

• Ideally, located in Los Angeles near other team members

In addition to our technology lead we’re hiring a full-time design & product lead:

Product/Design Lead, Saltwater

Summary:
Saltwater is the family office of Ryan Graves, the former SVP of Global Operations and first employee of Uber. At Saltwater, we invest in technology and consumer businesses that we believe in. We also incubate our own software businesses when we identify an unfulfilled need and have the passion to build it ourselves. We are a small, closely-knit team, who cares as much about how we operate, and who we work with, as we do about what we build.

We are building out of first internal technology team and looking for a hands on product/design lead to be a critical partner — full-time employee #2/3 — in all areas of our small team.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and product efforts for Project Reef (our yet to be named primary product at Saltwater), our investment portfolio management software and investment decision optimization tool

• Help us build amazing, consumer-grade software, data & process management tools, data analytics, communications tools, and document/media storage tools

• Work closely with our technology lead in the development of any other internal technical tools that will help the team be more efficient or effective

• Support the investment process for any businesses we acquire under our Partner Equity model

Requirements:

• A few years experience in a design role at a software company (we’d like to go deep into your personal portfolio)

• Clear, concise written communicator – as a distributed team, this is incredibly important

• Always willing to take the initiative without being told to do so

• Willing to get your hands dirty – as a lean team, it’s the only way

• Focused on results, not just the appearance of results

• Willing to help build a team if necessary, but an aversion to overly large teams

• Familiarity with financial services / investing preferred

• Happy to work remotely and independently at times

• Team player, love seeing others succeed, happy to take blame, not too eager for credit

• Ideally, located in Los Angeles near other team members, but not required

We are so excited about what this new year and what this new product will bring, but we’re most excited about what new people we will meet, and who will join our team. At Saltwater people matter most, and so even though we won’t do a lot of it (we plan to be small for a long time) we love the recruiting process. If you or anyone you know would be the right fit for us please reach out, we look forward to speaking.

jobs@saltwater.com