VP, Mozilla Studio

Location: Remote Canada; Remote Germany; Remote UK; Remote US

Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit building a better technology future — powered by people, open by design, fueled by imagination.

We deliver people-first alternatives to today’s extractive systems. We build side by side with developers, innovators and advocates, united in the belief that a better technology future is not only possible — it’s ours to create!

Team

One of the ways we are deepening our commitment to building side by side with innovators is Mozilla Studio: where we find promising builders and ideas, select the ones worth backing, and help them become tools and technology actually used by people and institutions. It is where the critical step from promising idea to workable, sustainable tool happens.

Good public-interest technology often fails between prototype and first user, because commercial capital arrives on terms at odds with the mission, and grant capital rarely comes with the help a team needs on sustainment, supply, and operational excellence. Mozilla Studio, building on the work of our Incubator, helps to close that gap. It backs efforts early, gives teams what they need, and connects them to the deployers, buyers, and follow-on funders who help make these alternatives true defaults. Our goal is technology that lasts beyond our funding.

This newly created role of VP, Mozilla Studio will hold the responsibility of building and running the Studio. You'll start with an active portfolio, including our current AI initiatives, and keep that work moving without disruption while you set the Studio's direction.

This role reports directly to the CEO and partners closely with the Operations Team to steward the Studio's legal, compliance, financial, and logistical obligations, keeping handoffs clear so the Studio runs smoothly across the Foundation.

This is a remote role open to candidates based in Canada, Germany, the UK, or the US.

Job responsibilities

As the VP, Mozilla Studio, you will…

• Take the helm of the Studio’s active portfolio, including our current AI initiatives. You’ll keep it moving while you build trusted relationships with the CEO, teams across the Foundation, and builders. 
• Assess each active bet rigorously to understand who it serves, what early signals it’s showing, and what it will take to reach its next stage.
• Set the Studio's direction and criteria for what it backs, extends, stops, or declines, and decide how much support each team gets within our agreed investment timelines. Every decision ties back to technology people can use, held by teams that can stand on their own.  
• Hold every bet to a clear standard: a deployer or user named up front, with progress measured in adoption and impact rather than activity.
• Pressure-test every commitment before capital moves to understand whether we can make a meaningful difference, and whether our risk capital can unblock something uniquely within our reach.
• Balance early signals across the portfolio against bigger conviction bets. Make disciplined stop decisions at the right moments and document the rationale behind each.
• Guide each team to a durable structure (a company, nonprofit, cooperative, mission entity, or commons project) with a working sustaining model and at least one named funder beyond us.
• Build and lead a high-performing Studio team and a bench of talent calibrated to support each team's stage and timeline.
• Set up clear and dependable handoffs with the Investment Committee and other Foundation teams, so the Studio works seamlessly across the organization and investment cycle.
• Translate portfolio evidence into clear signals for leadership, the Board and our funders, with candor about what we expected, what happened, and where we fell short.
• Make the Studio a place serious engineers and founders want to be, and a trusted source of vetted opportunities for deployers and co-funders.

Your Professional Profile

• Proven track record building or leading a studio, incubator, lab, accelerator or early-stage founder program at a senior level, working hands-on with the teams you backed
• Technical lens to engage engineers, open source and internet infrastructure, and can rigorously test the claims teams make
• Deep, active network of deployers, buyers, co-funders and builders across sectors and regions, with the discernment to know which ideas merit their attention
• Fluency with capital classes. Knowledge across grants, recoverable grants, PRI, and beyond
• Experience with at least one model beyond venture equity, such as cooperatives or public-benefit companies
• Comfort in making the hard calls; stopping bets and saying no
• Experience building and leading high-performing teams, and drawing in borrowed talent such as residents and advisors
• Demonstrated commitment to Mozilla Foundation's mission and to an open, trustworthy internet
• Flexibility to work across time zones and occasionally outside standard hours

We Are Excited To See Any Additional Experience With:

• Nonprofit governance and Board reporting
• Fundraising and building funder relationships
• Depth in one or more of Mozilla Foundation's focus areas
• Helping teams get their technology adopted by public institutions or large organizations

How We Work

A few things that are true about how we work at Mozilla Foundation. Here's a summary along with our expectation of how these should show up in this role:

• Move toward the hard thing. Stopping a bet, or turning down a builder you like, is part of this job. Name it early, explain your reasoning to the team directly, and raise concerns in the room rather than after it.
• Stay curious and current. Keep close to what's moving in open source, internet infrastructure and the communities our tools are meant to serve. Bring what you learn back, and test your own conviction as hard as you test a team's claims.
• Work in the open. Document why we backed, extended or stopped each bet so leadership, the Board and funders can follow the reasoning. Share portfolio progress while it's still in progress, not only once it's polished.
• Focus and finish. A lean Studio can't back everything. Be clear about which bets get support and why, then see each one through to a sustainable form or a well-made stop.
• Flex with purpose. A cooperative at month four needs something different from a commons project at year two. Adjust your support as teams and context change, without drifting from the mission or the timelines agreed on.
• Lead with care. Hold builders to high standards while remembering they're people taking real risks. Talk directly with whoever can fix a problem, and keep enough lightness in the room that people can be human.

Salary and Benefits Information

Mozilla Foundation is dedicated to fair and equitable compensation for our staff. We aim to pay a competitive and market-based salary based on the responsibilities and requirements of the role. We do not ask for, or take into account, salary histories in our offer process.

The starting salary ranges for this role are listed below. 

• Germany: €222,088.00 – €249,848.22
• UK: £195,534.00 – £219,975.06
• Canada: $383,400.00 – $431,323.65
• US: $284,000 – $319,499

We also offer the following benefits:

• Private Medical Insurance
• Extended Sick Leave
• Global Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Retirement Plan contributions
• Paid Time Off: 20 days annual leave + sick days and your birthday
• Company Holidays + EOY Shutdown
• Wellness budget
• Professional Development budget
• Top up program for Pregnancy and Parental leaves

Benefits are subject to change at any time at the discretion of Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla Foundation Hiring Practices

Mozilla understands that valuing diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge are crucial to and enrich the company’s core mission. We encourage applications from everyone, including members of all equity-seeking communities, such as (but certainly not limited to) women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation at accommodation@mozillafoundation.org.

 

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