Head of Applied AI

Talently; San Francisco (CA); Presencial; USD 350.000 - 500.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Talently is seeking a Head of Applied AI to guide the technical and research direction of an agent platform. You will set architectural standards, scale the engineering team, and contribute production code to solve production-grade AI agent challenges.

You will translate cutting-edge research into customer-ready capabilities and serve as the technical voice in critical enterprise discussions, balancing reliability and velocity while driving meaningful customer value.

Formación

• 3 to 5 years of relevant engineering and technical leadership experience.
• Proven track record building and shipping AI agents within a high-growth startup or scale-up environment.
• Deep, hands-on experience solving production agent challenges, including reliability, evaluation frameworks, tool use, context handling, and error recovery.
• Demonstrated success shaping and evolving software architecture as a company and platform scale.
• Active involvement in writing and shipping production-level code.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to build trust directly with enterprise customers during high-stakes technical conversations.
• Legal authorization to work in the United States (visa sponsorship available for H-1B, O-1, and OPT).

Responsabilidades

• Set a cohesive technical direction, ensuring the product architecture is durable, understandable, and scalable.
• Decide what belongs in the core shared product platform versus customer-specific implementations.
• Lead and scale the engineering team through hands-on hiring, mentoring, and maintaining a high standard for technical judgment.
• Build directly alongside the team by writing production code and solving complex technical issues firsthand.
• Act as the primary technical voice for enterprise customers, joining key discussions and translating customer needs into architectural solutions.
• Navigate trade-offs across reliability, product quality, development velocity, and customer requirements.
• Define the product and research roadmap, determining which technical bets drive meaningful customer value and turning research breakthroughs into shipped product features.

Conocimientos

Engineering leadership

Production code

Enterprise tech discussions

Software architecture

Team mentoring

Hiring

Herramientas

AI agents

Reliability frameworks

Descripción del empleo

Compensation: $350,000 - $500,000 / year + competitive equity

The Company

Our client is an applied research lab building a self-improving, model-agnostic agent harness that automates enterprise knowledge work. Backed by $24M in funding from top-tier venture firms and prominent angel investors, they are rapidly scaling and on track to reach $55M ARR with over 50 enterprise customers. The founding and engineering team brings elite pedigree from top institutions and proven track records in high-growth technology environments.

Role Overview

Our client is seeking an exceptional Head of Applied AI to drive the technical and research direction of their agent platform. In this high-impact role, you will set architectural standards, lead and scale the engineering team, and actively write production code alongside engineers. You will solve the foundational challenges of production-grade AI agents, translate state-of-the-art research into customer-ready capabilities, and act as the technical face of engineering in critical customer discussions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Set a cohesive technical direction, ensuring the product architecture is durable, understandable, and scalable.
• Decide what belongs in the core shared product platform versus customer-specific implementations.
• Lead and scale the engineering team through hands-on hiring, mentoring, and maintaining a high standard for technical judgment.
• Build directly alongside the team by writing production code and solving complex technical issues firsthand.
• Act as the primary technical voice for enterprise customers, joining key discussions and translating customer needs into architectural solutions.
• Navigate trade-offs across reliability, product quality, development velocity, and customer requirements.
• Define the product and research roadmap, determining which technical bets drive meaningful customer value and turning research breakthroughs into shipped product features.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of relevant engineering and technical leadership experience.
• Proven track record building and shipping AI agents within a high-growth startup or scale-up environment.
• Deep, hands-on experience solving production agent challenges, including reliability, evaluation frameworks, tool use, context handling, and error recovery.
• Demonstrated success shaping and evolving software architecture as a company and platform scale.
• Active involvement in writing and shipping production-level code.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to build trust directly with enterprise customers during high-stakes technical conversations.
• Legal authorization to work in the United States (visa sponsorship available for H-1B, O-1, and OPT).