AI Builder Fellowship: PE Fund + Portfolio

TowerBrook; New York (NY); On-site; USD 130,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

Intensive applied AI training

Direct mentorship from industry leaders

Job summary

TowerBrook is offering an exciting Applied AI fellowship that focuses on intensive training for fellows in New York or London. This six-month fellowship aims to prepare candidates to work as Applied AI Engineers directly within portfolio companies. Responsibilities include completing a training program, leading internal AI projects, and developing practical AI solutions with real business impact. Ideal candidates have a technical background and are fluent with modern AI tools. Competitive salary ranges from $130,000 to $150,000 with additional benefits.

Qualifications

• 1-3 years of post-university experience in a builder role.
• Technical background in areas like computer science, engineering, or applied mathematics.
• Fluency with AI tools such as ChatGPT.

Responsibilities

• Complete a three-week intensive training program with an AI partner.
• Pair with senior engineers on live projects.
• Lead internal builds with senior business owners.

Skills

Software engineering

Fluency with modern AI tools

Stakeholder presence

Builder disposition

Proficiency in Python

Education

Technical or quantitative undergraduate degree

Job description

Position Overview

The AI Hive is TowerBrook’s new fellowship for applied AI builders. This is not an analyst program and it is not a consulting role. Fellows do not produce slides about what AI could do. Fellows train intensively inside TowerBrook for six months, with the opportunity to progress into a twelve-month embed inside one of our portfolio companies as an Applied AI Engineer, working directly with CEOs and operating teams to ship AI‑native solutions that move real numbers.

The fellowship runs in two phases. In Phase 1 (six months), fellows are based at TowerBrook in New York or London, training with leading external AI partners and shipping high‑priority internal projects across the firm. Fellows who excel in Phase 1 are considered for Phase 2 (twelve months): a full‑time, onsite embed inside a TowerBrook portfolio company, working in person alongside the management team and reporting to the CEO, CTO, or Head of AI, and delivering milestone‑based work with measured business outcomes.

Fellows in this first cohort will have a unique opportunity to shape how TowerBrook builds and deploys AI talent across the portfolio.

Responsibilities

Phase 1: Inside TowerBrook (Months 1 to 6)

• Complete a three‑week intensive training program with a leading AI‑native training partner, covering prompt engineering, agent architecture, Claude Code and other coding assistants, workflow automation (n8n, Lovable), Python, and enterprise AI governance.
• Pair with internal devs and senior engineers from best‑in‑class applied AI firms on live TowerBrook projects, shipping working prototypes within the first six weeks.
• Lead at least two internal builds with named senior sponsors as business owners. Projects may span front, middle, or back office (investment teams, operations, finance, IR, compliance, knowledge management) depending on firm priority. Deliver shipped output, not recommendations.
• Contribute to the shared Hive knowledge base (reusable agents, templates, playbooks) that compounds across future cohorts.

Phase 2: Portfolio Company Assignment (Months 7 to 18)

• Match into a portfolio company across TowerBrook verticals based on fit, and relocate as needed to work onsite at the company’s primary office for the duration of the twelve‑month embed. Matching is jointly led by the Program Lead, the senior program sponsor, and TowerBrook’s Technology Operating Partners.
• Run a four‑week diagnostic sprint: map workflows, validate pain points, and produce a twelve‑month build roadmap signed off by the company CEO and the TCP sponsor.
• Execute three to five milestone‑based build sprints of eight to twelve weeks, each delivering measured output (hours saved, revenue uplift, cost reduction, new capability shipped).
• Report directly to the company CEO, CTO, or Head of AI, while retaining ongoing connectivity to TowerBrook for the duration of the engagement.
• Attend monthly Hive‑wide cross‑pollination sessions with other fellows and coordinators. Document learnings for the Hive knowledge base.
• At the close of the twelve‑month deployment, transition into one of four paths: a full‑time role at the portfolio company, redeployment to a second company, a role at TowerBrook, or release into the TCP alumni network.

Professional Qualifications & Experience

• One to three years of post‑university experience in a builder role. We read “builder” broadly: software engineering, data, product, operations with automation exposure, quantitative research, consulting with hands‑on implementation, or early‑stage startups. Candidates with fewer than one year or more than three years of experience are out of scope for the pilot cohort.
• A technical or quantitative undergraduate background is welcome: computer science, engineering, physics, applied mathematics, statistics, computational biology, industrial engineering, operations research, information systems, or quantitative economics. We will also consider non‑technical majors with visible builder evidence such as a GitHub portfolio, shipped side projects, or published technical writing.
• Fluency with modern AI tools. You already use Claude or ChatGPT daily as a core part of your workflow, not as a novelty.
• Working proficiency in Python or another scripting language is a plus — enough to prototype end‑to‑end without supervision is ideal, but not required. Formal ML engineering or data science experience is not required and is not what we are optimizing for.
• Demonstrated evidence of shipped work outside a structured environment: a side project, an automation built at a previous role that nobody asked for, a product used by real users, or published writing with an audience. What you built matters more than where you built it.
• Right to work in the United States (for New York candidates) or the United Kingdom (for London candidates) is preferred. Visa support may be available for exceptional candidates.

Personal Qualifications

• Stakeholder presence. At ease working with a company CEO or a TowerBrook partner, approaching business problems with curiosity and humility.
• AI‑native instinct. You reach for AI tools naturally during ideation and problem solving.
• Builder disposition and bias for action. You try things rather than endlessly plan, and you pick up new tools quickly, including things outside your formal training.
• Written communication. You can produce a crisp one‑pager that a senior partner or a company CFO will actually read.

Compensation & Benefits of working at TowerBrook

• The base salary range for this role is $130,000 – $150,000. Compensation also includes eligibility for a discretionary annual bonus and a competitive benefits package.
• Intensive applied AI training with a curated set of leading external partners across AI‑native education and applied engineering.
• Direct mentorship from senior TowerBrook partners, Technology Operating Partners, and portfolio company CEOs.
• Guest seminar program featuring frontier AI lab teams, applied AI practitioners, and high‑signal technical writers.
• Clear post‑fellowship pathways: full‑time hire at the portfolio company, full‑time role at TowerBrook (Applied Engineer, investment associate, or Hive coordinator), redeployment to a second portfolio company, or release into the TCP alumni network.
• Access to cutting‑edge AI tooling and early‑access relationships with leading AI labs through TowerBrook’s partner networks.
• A collaborative, entrepreneurial culture within a globally respected investment firm.