Product Builder-Senior Associate

AI Fund; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Carry interest in VC fund

Equity in venture studio

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401k

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

AI Fund is seeking a Senior Associate Builder in Mountain View to rapidly prototype and validate new AI-powered venture ideas. You will work with partners and elite founders to turn concepts into real prototypes and clear market signals.

You’ll build MVPs, run user research, and present lessons back to the team. The role combines engineering, product thinking, and go-to-market work, with full-time HQ duties and a benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k, and unlimited PTO.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience coding with AI and frontier AI.
• Experience as an engineer, product manager, or in go-to-market.
• Hands-on experience building GenAI applications (LLM calls, RAG, agentic workflows, evals).
• Experience with AI coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor, Codex.
• Ability to write scrappy, disposable code for fast prototypes and clean code when needed.
• Personal experience and interest in building, hacking, and prototyping.
• Strong communication with rigorous analysis to back views.
• A STEM or research degree from a top research university or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Identify, shape, and validate new company ideas with partners and founders.
• Build prototypes that answer the core questions about an idea.
• Run user research and translate feedback into market signals.
• Support partners and founders during the 12-week Build with hands-on design and go-to-market work.
• Present learnings to the team and potential founders: what worked, what failed, what to decide next.
• Stay at the frontier by reading papers and folds learnings into the next build.

Skills

GenAI

Product mgmt

Go-to-market

Prototype development

AI coding tools

Education

STEM or research degree

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Codex

Job description

AI Fund is a venture studio founded by Dr. Andrew Ng in 2017. We build AI companies from the ground up with corporate partners, investors, and elite founders, backed by a fund from top-tier global corporations and VC firms. Our purpose is to build AI companies that move humanity forward.

A Senior Associate Builder finds out fast whether an idea has real demand. The core of the role is build velocity: rapidly prototyping in a new space, putting it in front of users, and turning their feedback into market signal that AI Fund, our partners, and our founders use to make bets. Your job is to validate or falsify ideas quickly and honestly.

What You Will Do:

• Work with commercial partners, including corporates, VCs, and LPs, and with elite founders to identify, shape, and validate new company ideas.
• Build prototypes that answer the open question about an idea. Start with the simplest design that works and add complexity only when the evidence calls for it.
• Put prototypes in front of users, run user research, and turn what you hear into clear market signal.
• Support partners and founders during the 12-week Build with hands‑on product design and go‑to‑market work.
• Present what you learned to the team and to potential founders: what worked, what failed, and what they need to decide next.
• Stay at the frontier by reading papers, model cards, and technical writeups, and fold what you learn into the next build.

Requirements For the Role Include:

• Technical ability, a real understanding of frontier AI, and hands‑on experience coding with AI.
• Experience as an engineer, product manager, or in go‑to‑market.
• Hands‑on experience building GenAI applications, such as LLM calls, RAG, agentic workflows, and evals.
• Skill with AI coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex, directing them to ship working software while you own the quality bar.
• The judgment to write scrappy, disposable code for a fast prototype and clean code when it needs to last.
• Personal experience and interest in building, hacking, and prototyping.
• The ability to communicate with rigor and back your views with analysis.
• A STEM or research degree from a top research university, or an equivalent background where you've built the same rigor.

Nice To Haves Include:

• Experience shipping MVPs, prototypes, or early‑stage products.
• Interest or experience in product design and product thinking.
• Contributions to open‑source GenAI projects or tools.

Who Is This Role For:

• Someone with real intellectual range who gets up to speed on a new space quickly and makes everyone around them smarter about it.
• A builder who ships MVPs fast and still builds on weekends because staying at the frontier is what they'd do anyway.

This role is full‑time at our HQ in Mountain View. This role will include a competitive base salary, carry interest in our VC fund, and equity in our venture studio. We also offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k, and unlimited PTO.