How to apply for Operations, Strategy & Special Projects

About Aquaria

Aquaria is working on transforming air into water to create a reliable, climate-resilient water supply. The company is early-stage enough that the founders and Head of Product Strategy & Special Projects still own the hardest problems directly, and the leadership works AI-first: they do their own analysis, build their own tools, and write their own documents.

About the role

This is a generalist operations, strategy, and special projects role reporting to the Head of Product Strategy & Special Projects and the co-founder/COO. You will work on whatever the company most needs solved that week, from building a market model that does not exist yet to connecting scattered facts across the company. The work has no fixed scope and changes as the company does, but the level stays constant: problems that currently sit with the founders.

A typical day

A typical day might start with a problem the founders or Head of Product Strategy & Special Projects need answered that week, such as a market that has to exist on paper or a model nobody has built. You would work AI-first, building the analysis or tool yourself, then verify it before anyone acts. No two days are the same, and the scope changes as the company does.

Who Aquaria is looking for

• Comfortable starting a problem without knowing the shape of the answer, and willing to get absorbed in it until it is solved.
• AI-first operator who does their own analysis, builds their own tools, and writes their own documents, using AI for labor and themselves for judgment.
• Skeptical and verification-driven: questions things that sound convincing and verifies work before anyone acts on it.
• Can carry founder-level problems across operations, strategy, and special projects without a fixed playbook or scope.

Tips for this application

• Show one concrete example where you built a model, market analysis, or plan from scratch and it changed a decision. Do not describe the process in the abstract; name the decision it changed.
• Demonstrate AI-first work directly. Include a link or short description of a tool, analysis, or document you built with AI systems where you did the judging.
• Address the no-fixed-scope nature of the role. Explain how you decide what to work on when the week's priority is not defined for you.
• Reference Aquaria's specific problem: transforming air into water for a reliable, climate-resilient supply. Show you understand why a better answer on market, model, or operations matters for that problem.
• Keep the application itself tight and verified. This role rewards people who check their work before anyone acts on it, so errors in your own materials will count against you.

What to cover in your cover letter

['A specific hard problem you solved where the answer was not known at the start, and what changed because of your answer.', 'How you work AI-first: what you build yourself, what you delegate to AI, and how you verify the output.', 'Why you want a role with no fixed scope that reports to a Head of Product Strategy & Special Projects and a co-founder/COO.', "Why Aquaria's air-to-water problem specifically interests you, tied to a market, model, or operations question you would want to work on."]

Research before applying

• Understand Aquaria's core technology and business model: how air-to-water generation works, where it is deployed, and who buys it.
• Look into the climate-resilient water supply market: which regions, industries, or buyers face water reliability problems that Aquaria could address.
• Study how early-stage companies structure founder-level special projects, so you can speak to how you would prioritize when scope is undefined.
• Check what public information exists about Aquaria's leadership, funding stage, and current priorities, and note what is not public so you can ask about it in interviews.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• Walk through a time you built a model or market analysis nobody had built before. What did you assume, and how did you verify it?
• How do you use AI systems in your daily work? Give an example where AI did the labor and you did the judging.
• You are given a problem with no clear scope and no clear answer. How do you decide what to work on first?
• Tell us about a time you questioned something that sounded convincing and turned out to be wrong.
• What would you want to understand about Aquaria's market, model, or operations in your first two weeks?

Common mistakes to avoid

• Presenting yourself as a generalist without evidence of carrying a hard, undefined problem to a verified answer.
• Claiming AI-first work without showing what you actually built, judged, or verified yourself.
• Treating the role as a standard operations job with a fixed scope, rather than one that changes with the company's needs.