Founding Head of AI

Talent Connect Group (TCG); New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Talent Connect Group (TCG) is seeking the Founding Head of AI (Seed-Stage FinTech) to define and lead the AI strategy from day one. You will write and ship production code weekly, own the roadmap, and build the first systems in close collaboration with the CEO.

You will drive architecture, experiments, and build-vs-buy decisions across models and infrastructure. You will lead a small, fast-moving team and partner with design and product to deliver AI features that meet real user needs while

Qualifications

• 7+ years in software or ML engineering with hands-on build experience.
• Strong Python and production experience with LLMs, RAG and agent frameworks.
• Proven track record shipping AI products to real users, ideally in a startup.
• Experience with evals, prompt design and model performance in production.
• Comfort handling sensitive personal and financial data.
• Builder mindset: coding over slides.

Responsibilities

• Own the AI roadmap and core architecture end to end.
• Design, build and ship LLM and agent systems from prototype to production.
• Build document understanding and data extraction pipelines across financial and legal records.
• Set up evaluation frameworks to measure accuracy, safety and reliability.
• Make build versus buy decisions across models, vendors and infrastructure.
• Partner with product and design to turn user needs into AI features.
• Hire and grow the engineering team as the company scales.

Skills

7+ years experience

Python

LLMs

RAG

Agent frameworks

AI product shipping

Tools

LLM frameworks

RAG tooling

Agent frameworks

Production systems

Job description

Founding Head of AI (Seed-Stage FinTech)

The company is backed by tier-one investors. The founding team is small, technical and fast-moving. This hire sets the AI direction for the whole business.

You lead AI from day one. You write and ship production code every week. You own the AI roadmap and build the first systems yourself. You work side by side with the CEO on what gets built and when.

What You Will Do:

• Own the AI roadmap and core architecture end to end.
• Design, build and ship LLM and agent systems from prototype to production.
• Build document understanding and data extraction pipelines across financial and legal records.
• Set up evaluation frameworks to measure accuracy, safety and reliability.
• Make build versus buy decisions across models, vendors and infrastructure.
• Partner with product and design to turn user needs into AI features.
• Hire and grow the engineering team as the company scales.

What You Bring

• 7+ years in software or ML engineering, with recent hands-on build work.
• Strong Python and production experience with LLMs, RAG and agent frameworks.
• A track record of shipping AI products to real users, ideally at a startup.
• Experience with evals, prompt design and model performance in production.
• Comfort working with sensitive personal and financial data.
• A builder mindset. You prefer writing code to writing slides.

Nice to Have

• A background in FinTech, WealthTech, InsurTech or LegalTech.
• Experience as a founding or first AI hire.