Applied AI Lead - up to $475k

Open Select; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 427,500 - 522,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free food

Transport

Significant equity

Dog-friendly office

Job summary

An early-stage AI company in San Francisco seeks a senior leader to define the strategy for applied AI systems and build a high-performing team. The role includes developing and deploying AI operating systems for enterprise clients, directly shaping architecture and direction with the CEO. Candidates should have a strong background in software engineering and AI product delivery. Competitive compensation includes equity and benefits such as free food and a dog-friendly office.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering, including 3+ years building applied AI or ML systems.
• Experience shipping AI products used by paying customers.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, agents, retrieval, and deployment.

Responsibilities

• Define the strategy and roadmap for Applied AI.
• Build and lead a high-performing team of AI engineers.
• Own the development and deployment of enterprise AI systems.
• Work directly with the CEO to shape technical direction.

Skills

Software engineering

Applied AI systems

Machine Learning

Leadership

Coding

Job description

Compensation: Up to $475,000 + meaningful equity

Who You’ll Join:

Join an early-stage AI company building the AI operating system for your company, a centralized reasoning engine that understands, learns, and acts across an entire organization.

You’ll be one of the first senior leaders in a founding team, backed by $9M in seed funding, with strong early traction ($1.3M ARR in 16 weeks and an active Fortune 500 pipeline). Investors include Long Journey Ventures and Axiom Ventures.

This is not an R&D project or internal tooling role. You’ll be building applied AI systems already used by high-growth startups and large enterprises for real, high-stakes decisions.

What You’ll Do:

• Define the strategy and roadmap for Applied AI across product and customers.
• Build and lead a high-performing team of AI engineers and applied ML practitioners from the ground up.
• Own the development and deployment of the AI operating system for enterprise clients, from prototype to production.
• Take responsibility for reliability, evaluation, monitoring, and failure modes of enterprise AI systems.
• Work directly with the CEO and founding team to shape core architecture and long-term technical direction.
• Design and ship agentic systems that reason across tools, take action, and improve with organizational context.

Who You Are:

• 5+ years in software engineering, including 3+ years building applied AI or ML systems.
• You have personally shipped AI products used by paying customers, not just demos or experiments.
• Strong hands-on experience with LLMs, agents, retrieval, evaluation, and production deployment.
• Comfortable as a hands-on leader. You can architect systems, write code, and hire the right team around you.
• You thrive in early-stage environments with ambiguity, speed, and high ownership.
• Bonus experience with enterprise SaaS, data platforms, CRMs, analytics, or deeply integrated internal tools.

Why You’ll Thrive:

• Build the entire Applied AI function from scratch at a company positioning itself as the AI OS for work.
• Report directly to the CEO and have real influence over product, architecture, and company direction.
• Join at a true inflection point with strong revenue, enterprise demand, and a Series A on the horizon.
• Work on agentic AI that runs real workflows end-to-end across CRMs, analytics, finance, and internal apps.
• Operate in a small, senior team where your decisions materially shape the company’s trajectory.
• Enjoy a strong San Francisco culture, free food and transport, significant equity, and a dog-friendly office.

Work authorization: At this time, we’re only able to consider candidates authorized to work in the US (US citizens, Green Card holders, or TN visa holders).