Founding AI Engineer

🧠 Founding AI Engineer | Stealth Cyber & Defense Startup

📍 San Francisco, CA (On-site) | 💼 Full-time | 

Our client is a stealth-stage technology company developing a new class of offensive cyber capability for the U.S. Department of Defence and Intelligence Community — alongside systems that detect and neutralise the same class of threats when deployed against the U.S.

This isn’t about patching vulnerabilities or chasing zero-days — it’s about redefining digital conflict through AI-driven innovation that could change how cyber operations unfold globally.

The Role:

As a Founding AI Engineer, you’ll design and deploy LLM-powered systems where success is measured by real-world outcomes, not vanity metrics. You’ll work hands-on across prototyping, evaluation, and optimisation — building tools that deliver mission-critical impact.

You’ll:

• Build and evaluate LLM-based applications tied to tangible downstream results
• Design prompt and evaluation frameworks (gold sets, automated tests, benchmarks)
• Orchestrate and optimise models for reliability, latency, and cost
• Prototype rapidly and iterate from direct user feedback

You bring:

• Proven experience building or shipping LLM-driven systems
• Strong engineering background in Python or similar
• Familiarity with prompting, retrieval, fine-tuning, or lightweight RL
• Curiosity, adaptability, and a 0→1 mindset

Interview Loop:

1️⃣ Intro call with Founder/CEO

2️⃣ Chat with Board Chair

3️⃣ Practical technical screen

4️⃣ On-site in San Francisco