Executive Assistant to Founder

About Panda Drum

US wellness e-commerce brand, 300,000+ customers, ~$50M revenue this year, growing 3x year over year for three years straight. Steel tongue drums, instruments anyone can play, sold direct-to-consumer across the US. A ~40-person remote team across Europe, the US, and Asia, plus 100+ content creators. Profitable, bootstrapped, founder-led, and the founder is Polish, which is why this role is Poland-first but not limited to Poland-only.

The honest version of this job

The founder makes decisions fast across supply chain, marketing, hiring and finance. What falls through the cracks is everything that requires memory and follow-through, not judgment: a contractor payment that slips three weeks, a tool subscription that runs out of credits and blocks a designer for half a day, an onboarding email promised "today" three days in a row, a signature nobody chased.

Your job is to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. You will own the founder's calendar, inbox triage, payments calendar, tool and subscription administration, travel, meeting preparation and follow-ups. You will be measured on exactly one thing: whether things that were said get done without anyone reminding anyone.

This is a single-principal role. You work for one person, not a team. It is high trust: you will see compensation data, supplier terms and hiring decisions before anyone else in the company. Discretion is not a nice-to-have, it is the core of the job.

Who you'd actually work for

Marek, the founder, the person making those fast decisions. Built Panda Drum from zero to $50M in four years, bootstrapped, no investors. Direct to a degree most people need two weeks to calibrate to: if something is wrong, you'll hear it the same day, plainly, and then it's done, you will never have to guess where you stand, and correction is never anger.

Communicates in short Slack messages, sometimes at odd hours (answer in your working hours, nobody expects midnight replies). Expects loops closed the day they open, hates repeating himself, and notices everything.

The honest trade: the pace is intense, the feedback is unfiltered, and the standards don't relax. What you get back: zero politics, zero committees, a principal who backs his people publicly, pays above market, pays on time, every time, and gives real trust fast to people who prove they close loops. The people who thrive next to him would rather be corrected in one blunt sentence than managed by hints. If that's you, this is the best seat in the company.

What you will actually do

• Calendar and scheduling across CET, US and China time zones, including protecting deep-work blocks and drafting reschedule messages that keep relationships warm
• Payments calendar: contractors and team get paid on the 1st and 15th without exception, you run the checklist and confirm execution
• Tool administration: subscriptions, credits, seats, access requests. Nobody on the team ever waits
• Inbox triage: draft replies, chase signatures and open loops, flag only what needs the founder's judgment
• Meeting prep and follow-through: agendas in, action items out, owners chased until closed
• Travel: flights, hotels, visas, full itineraries for Europe, US and China trips
• Personal admin: the boundary between company and founder life is thin, expect some of both
• Keeping a single "open loops" list that is always current and always true

What we need from you

• 4+ years as an EA or similar right-hand role, at least part of it supporting one principal directly (founder, CEO, managing partner)
• You have worked in both a structured environment (corporate, consulting, banking) and a fast, messy one, and you know why we ask
• Direct communicator. If something is late, wrong or at risk, you say it plainly and early. Hinting is not communicating
• You close loops by reflex. A task without a confirmation is not done
• Excellent written English (C1+). Polish is a plus, not required
• Comfortable with numbers: reading an invoice, catching a discrepancy, keeping a simple ledger accurate
• Core availability CET business hours, plus flexibility for occasional evening pings during peak periods (Q4). This is not a 24/7 on-call job, but it is not 9-to-5 clockwork either

Toolstack

Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive), Slack, Notion, Fireflies, Recruitee, DocuSign or similar, Wise/Payoneer style payment tools, spreadsheets you actually enjoy keeping clean. Comfort using AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude) to draft, summarize and prepare is expected, we work that way daily.

This job is not for you if

• You want to grow into marketing, operations or your own project on the side. We are hiring someone who wants to be a world-class EA, not someone passing through
• You run a freelance business, an agency or a personal brand alongside. We need full focus
• You need detailed instructions to act. Here you will often get one sentence and full accountability
• You find checking the same list every single day beneath you. That list is the job

Why Panda Drum?

You will sit next to every decision a $50M company makes: supply chain, hiring, marketing, finance, all of it crosses your desk. No committees, no politics, no six people to align before anything moves. Decisions here take minutes, and you will watch how they get made. The company is profitable and growing fast, so the seat is stable, but nothing about the work is corporate. If you have ever wanted to see how a business actually runs, this is the closest view that exists.

Salary

$4,500-6,000 USD/month (approx. 16,500-22,000 PLN/mies.), depending on experience, plus 13th-month salary and performance bonuses.

Perks

• Work from home, remote-first
• Paid travel (Europe, US)
• B2B contract, or employment contract (umowa o pracę) via our EoR partner
• Tools and self-development budget, no approval loops