Interview Prep HUD // Confidential

Hazel AI — Founding GTM Engineer

Altruist spin-off • Series A inside a $9B company • San Francisco

RECRUITER SCREEN ✓ PASSED NEXT: HIRING MANAGER (Gokul or Cecilia) COMP: $200-225K + OTE HYBRID: 3 DAYS/WEEK SF
Company Intel

What Is Hazel AI

  • AI engine for wealth management — tax automation + advisor copilot
  • Spun off from Altruist (Series F, $600M raised, $9B valuation)
  • Co-founded by Cecilia Chen (ex-Chief of Staff) and Gokul (ex-Head of Eng)
  • Launched September 2025. Organic user growth, zero formal sales
  • Product given free to Altruist customers → word spread → competitor stocks dropped ~$100M
  • Bloomberg, CNBC, Financial Advisor Magazine called the CEO while he was on vacation

Why This Role Exists

  • Inbound demand already flowing. No outbound engine yet
  • Founding commercial team being built: 2 SDRs, 2 AMs, 1 GTM Engineer (you)
  • Need someone to architect the entire commercial infrastructure from zero
  • GTM consultant already on board helping define the profile and interview process
  • Tension between consultant (wants RevOps background) and Gokul (wants more technical/SRE)
  • Your profile bridges both — that's the advantage

ICP & Market

  • Primary buyer: Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) and wealth advisors
  • Unlike Altruist (requires custody transfer), Hazel is standalone — any advisor can buy a seat
  • Competitor landscape: TurboTax (D2C), but Hazel is B2B — direct to advisors with AUM
  • Regulated industry — fintech compliance matters
  • Land-and-expand: get advisors on Hazel → eventually convert to Altruist custody

Key People

  • Melissa Little — Contract recruiter. Brought in specifically for GTM hires. Senior, transparent, human-centered
  • Cecilia Chen — Co-founder. Ex-Chief of Staff at Altruist. Likely more business-oriented
  • Gokul — Co-founder. Ex-engineering leader. Prefers technical/SRE profile. Will probably push on coding depth
  • GTM Consultant — (unnamed) Has final say on profiles. Leans toward RevOps/sales background
Interview Process Map

Stage 1 — Recruiter Screen ✓

Melissa Little. 30 min. Passed — "one of my favorite conversations in weeks." Screen share of portfolio impressed her. She flagged the vendor concern and you handled it.

Stage 2 — Hiring Manager

Gokul or Cecilia. Expect deeper technical probing. Gokul will push on coding. Cecilia likely on business acumen and GTM strategy.

Stage 3 — Technical Exercise

Possible coding exercise (HackerRank) or sit with Altruist engineer. Alternatively: Loom walkthrough of a framework you built from scratch showing problem → build → outcome.

Stage 4 — Final / Offer

Likely includes the GTM consultant. Cross-functional fit check.

Builder-Not-Vendor Positioning

The Risk

Melissa directly asked if you were trying to sell your framework. She needed to confirm you're a builder joining a team, not a vendor selling a product.

Your frameworks (Basin::Nexus, Signal Refinery, execution console) are impressive — but they can also look like a product pitch if not framed correctly.

The Lock-In Language

  • "I come with a toolkit. But I build with the tools the company has."
  • "Think of it like a carpenter who brings their own tools to a job site."
  • "The frameworks help me move faster. They're not a product I sell."
  • "I've been doing fractional for 6 months. I'm ready to join one company and build deep."
Anticipated Questions & Answers
"Walk us through a GTM system you built from scratch."
Lead with Fudo Security. "I joined as the founding GTM hire reporting directly to the CEO. No CRM, no outbound, no SDR team. In 20 months I built the Salesforce architecture, automated enrichment pipelines in Python, deployed signal-based lead scoring and routing, hired and ramped 8 people, and drove 160% YoY pipeline growth. The $424K OpEx savings came from automating research that humans were doing manually."
"Can you write production Python?"
"I write the business logic and use AI-assisted development tools — Claude Code, Google Antigravity — to generate and iterate on the implementation. I don't write syntax by hand. The tradeoff is I ship 10x faster than someone who does, and I can architect the full system because I understand both the business logic and the code. The Signal Refinery on my portfolio is 700K+ lines built this way."
"Why leave fractional/consulting for full-time?"
"Fractional taught me range — I shipped systems for a sales training company and a technical sales automation company in parallel. But you can't build deep systems across four companies at once. I do my best work inside the organization, close to the data, close to the team, and close to the decisions. I want to join one company I believe in and build something durable."
"How would you approach Hazel's GTM in the first 30 days?"
"Day one: audit whatever CRM state exists — HubSpot, Salesforce, spreadsheets, whatever. Map the current inbound flow end to end. Instrument the funnel from first touch to activation. By day 30 I'd have a baseline scorecard, the first automated enrichment pipeline live, and a clear picture of where leads are leaking. The goal isn't a plan — it's shipping something that generates signal before the month is up."
"What GTM tools have you used?"
"Salesforce and HubSpot for CRM. Outreach and Apollo for sequencing. Clay and ZoomInfo for enrichment. Python for custom integrations and scoring logic. I've also prototyped LLM-powered workflows — lead qualification agents, email personalization, call summarization — using the OpenAI and Anthropic APIs. The JD mentions these specifically and I've built with all of them."
"This is a regulated industry. Any fintech experience?"
"Not wealth management specifically, but I built GTM infrastructure for Fudo Security in the identity and access management space — heavily regulated, enterprise buyers, long sales cycles, compliance-heavy. The discipline of building for regulated environments transfers: audit trails, data integrity, controlled outbound, and working closely with legal on messaging. The SCU MBA also gave me a strong financial services foundation."
"Are you comfortable doing technical support on sales calls?"
"That was a big part of my role at Fudo. I joined AE calls to translate technical architecture into business outcomes. I closed multiple $100K+ enterprise contracts that way. At Sense I did the same thing — the enterprise buyers needed someone who could explain the AI systems, not just the pricing. I'm comfortable in the room."
What to Show If Asked for a Walkthrough

Option A: Signal Refinery

Show the Python logic for lead scoring and routing. Walk through: raw signal → enrichment → tier scoring → routing decision → outbound action. Frame as: "This is the kind of system I'd build for Hazel's inbound flow."

Option B: Fudo Security Build

Tell the story: zero to $10M pipeline. No CRM → Salesforce architecture → automated enrichment → SDR team → 160% growth. "This is what founding looks like. I've done it."

Option C: Build Something for Hazel

Strongest move: build a small prototype specific to Hazel's ICP (wealth advisors). A lead scoring model, an enrichment workflow, or a lifecycle automation sketch. Show it on screen. "I built this for you."

Deliverables for Melissa

Resume

Hazel-tailored version: View Resume →

Key changes: title matched to JD, tech stack mirrored to requirements, Fudo framed as "founding hire," AI/LLM workflows emphasized, 30/60/90 tailored to Hazel buildout.

GitHub & Portfolio