Applied AI Engineer - Conversational AI

Founding Applied AI Engineer (Stealth AI Startup)We're partnering with a well-funded AI startup founded by former enterprise software leaders to hire a Founding Applied AI Engineer. The company is building an AI-native platform that is reimagining how knowledge workers interact with enterprise systems, replacing traditional workflows with intelligent, conversational AI.Backed by leading Silicon Valley investors, the company is currently in stealth and is preparing to raise its Series A following the completion of a small number of key founding hires. Design partners are already in place, with the first product launching in early 2027.The OpportunityThis is a rare chance to join as one of the first technical hires and help define the company's AI platform from the ground up. You'll work directly with the founders to design, build and ship production AI systems that will become the foundation of the product.This is a deeply hands-on engineering role where you'll own problems end-to-end—from research and prototyping through to production deployment.What You'll Be Working OnBuilding production-grade AI agents capable of reasoning and taking actions across complex enterprise workflowsDesigning retrieval, search and knowledge systems that power intelligent user experiencesDeveloping evaluation frameworks to improve model quality, reliability and agent performanceBuilding orchestration systems for multi-agent workflows and tool useImproving LLM performance through prompt engineering, fine-tuning and post-training techniques where appropriateWorking closely with customers and design partners to rapidly iterate on product capabilitiesHelping establish the technical foundations of the AI platform as the engineering team scalesWe're Looking ForStrong production experience building modern AI/ML systemsHands-on experience with one or more of:LLMs and agentic AISearch, retrieval or recommendation systemsRAG and knowledge systemsRanking, personalization or large-scale MLLLM evaluation, post-training or model optimizationStrong software engineering fundamentals with experience shipping production systemsComfortable operating in ambiguity and excited by zero-to-one product developmentMotivated by ownership, speed and building alongside foundersWhy Join?Founding engineer opportunity with significant technical ownershipWork directly alongside an exceptional founding team with deep enterprise software experienceBacked by top-tier venture investors with Series A planned for later this yearSmall, high-calibre engineering team where every hire will shape the product and technical directionCompetitive compensation alongside meaningful early-stage equityOpportunity to build an AI-native product from inception through rapid company growthThis role is ideal for engineers who enjoy building from first principles, shipping quickly, and solving difficult applied AI problems rather than simply integrating existing models.