Executive Assistant to CEO

About Panda Drum
US wellness e-commerce brand. 300,000+ customers, multiple eight figure revenue this year, 3x growth three years running. Steel tongue drums, instruments anyone can play, sold direct to consumers in the US. ~40+ people remote across Europe, the US and Asia. Profitable, bootstrapped, founder-led. The founder is Polish and based in Warsaw, which is why this role is Poland-first but not Poland-only.
The honest version of this job
The founder makes fast decisions across supply chain, marketing, hiring and finance. Two things fall through the cracks.
First, follow-through: a contractor payment that slips, a subscription that runs out of credits and blocks a designer, an answer promised "today" three days in a row, a signature nobody chased.
Second, decisions that never needed him: too many people have direct access to the founder, and most of what reaches him could be handled by someone who knows how he thinks.
Follow-through is the floor of this job. You own the calendar, inbox triage, payments calendar, tools and subscriptions, travel, meeting prep and follow-ups, and all open loops. The job itself is judgment: you become the filter for the senior team, you make decisions inside a defined authority zone, you sit in on hiring, and in your first 30 days you build AI automation around the founder's inbox and calendar so the routine runs without you.
Single-principal role. You work for one person. You will see compensation, supplier terms and hiring decisions before anyone else in the company. Discretion is the core of the job.
Who you'd work for
Marek, the founder. Zero to multiple eight figures in four years, no investors. Direct to a degree that takes most people two weeks to calibrate to: if something is wrong, you hear it the same day. He communicates in short Slack messages, at any hour, from any time zone. Messages are flagged urgent or non-urgent. Urgent means immediate acknowledgment and action, weekends included. Non-urgent is yours to schedule inside your own system. Mid-November through mid-December is peak season: full standby, weekends contractual, everything reaching you is urgent by default. Outside that, the intensity is real but it's yours to organize. This is not a job you do from a beach, and it's not a job that expects you awake at 3 AM for nothing.
What you get back: zero politics, zero committees, a principal who backs his people publicly, and hands real trust fast to people who close loops. If you'd rather be corrected in one sentence than managed by hints, this is the best seat in the company.
If you come from corporate
Corporate-only backgrounds do not make it here. Not sometimes. Not with effort. We've tested it.
What you will actually do
Calendar and scheduling across CET, US and China, protecting deep-work blocks, drafting reschedules that keep relationships warm
Payments calendar: vendors and team paid on the 1st and 15th without exception, you run the checklist and confirm execution landed
Tools, subscriptions, credits, seats, access
Inbox triage: draft replies, chase signatures and open loops, flag only what genuinely needs the founder's judgment
Meeting prep and follow-through: agenda in, action items out, owners chased until closed
Filter and decision proxy for the senior team inside an agreed authority zone
Second chair in hiring interviews
Travel: flights, hotels, visas, full itineraries for Europe, US and China
Personal admin
Small AI tools around inbox, calendar and follow-ups
What we need from you
4+ years as an EA or right-hand role, at least 12 months of it supporting one principal directly (founder, CEO)
At least 12 months inside a company under 100 people or founder-led, after any corporate chapter. This is a hard requirement
Direct communicator. Late, wrong or at risk gets said plainly and early. Hinting is not communicating
You close loops by reflex. A task without confirmation is not done
You verify. "Done" means you checked, not that someone told you
Comfortable with numbers: you read an invoice, catch a discrepancy, keep a ledger clean, and notice when a total doesn't sum
Real AI fluency: you build simple automations with tools like Claude and ChatGPT, not just prompt them to draft
Excellent written and spoken English. Polish is a plus, not required
Core availability CET business hours, urgent-flag responsiveness beyond them, full standby mid-November to mid-December
Toolstack
Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, Fireflies, Recruitee, DocuSign, Wise, Claude and ChatGPT daily.
This job is not for you if
You want to grow into marketing, operations or a strategy title. We're hiring someone who wants to be world-class at this specific craft
You run a freelance business, agency, coaching practice or personal brand alongside. Full focus, no exceptions
You need instructions to act
Your whole career is corporate. See above
Salary and terms
$5,000-7,000 USD/month, depending on evidence, plus 13th-month salary and performance bonuses.
B2B contract or employment contract via our EoR partner, your choice.
Paid holidays, paid travel, tools and self-development budget with no approval loops.
Remote-first.
The process, and it's fast
Application with a short video. Screening call. Founder call. A paid 48-hour task that simulates the real job, the deadline is part of the test. References we actually call, so bring two people who'll pick up. Paid 30-day trial with written expectations. We move in days, not weeks.

Work arrangement
Yes