What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Engineer (AI) position at Averi?
About the Company
We are an early-stage startup building a cutting-edge AI-powered platform that includes agentic workflows, conversational AI, and seamless integrations to generate high-quality training data. We are pushing the boundaries of AI and need a leader who is eager to explore and leverage the latest advancements in LLMs, multimodal AI, and autonomous agents.
Key Responsibilities
- AI Strategy & Innovation: Define and execute the AI roadmap, making key decisions on models, tools, and infrastructure.
- Hands-on Development: Architect and implement scalable AI-powered workflows, conversational agents, and adaptive learning systems.
- Agentic Workflows: Design AI agents capable of reasoning, planning, and executing complex workflows autonomously.
- Conversational AI: Develop state-of-the-art chatbot capabilities leveraging LLMs and fine-tuned models.
- Data Pipelines & Integrations: Build pipelines to collect, clean, and process training data from various sources, ensuring continuous model improvement.
- Cutting-Edge Experimentation: Rapidly test and deploy new AI frameworks, open-source models, and proprietary enhancements.
- Team Growth & Leadership: Hire, mentor, and lead a growing AI team as we scale.
Ideal Background & Experience
- 5 years in AI/ML development, ideally in startup or fast-moving environments.
- Strong expertise in LLMs & agentic AI (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, RAG, fine-tuning models).
- Experience with AI infrastructure & deployment (LLM hosting, vector databases, LangChain, auto-agents).
- Deep knowledge of modern AI frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, etc.).
- Familiarity with orchestration & data pipelines (Airflow, Kafka, Snowflake, Pinecone, Weaviate).
- Track record of launching AI-driven products from prototype to production.
- Passion for pushing AI boundaries—actively experimenting with cutting-edge research.
- Strong systems thinking & engineering fundamentals (cloud computing, microservices, distributed systems).
- Startup mindset: Bias toward action, self-sufficient, thrives in ambiguity.
Key Qualities & Signals of a Great Candidate
- Explorer mentality – stays ahead of AI trends, builds side projects, reads research papers.
- Product-oriented thinking – understands AI is a means to an end, not just an academic exercise.
- Open-source contributor – has built or contributed to AI/ML frameworks.
- Rapid prototyper – builds quickly and iterates based on real-world usage.
- Experience with AI personalization & reasoning – has worked on advanced RAG, multi-agent coordination, or synthetic data training.
- Competitive salary and equity offer.
- Unlimited PTO policy.
- Hybrid work model (2-3 days in our Williamsburg, Brooklyn office).
- Fully paid dental and vision insurance.
- Comprehensive health insurance.
- Learning and Development reimbursement program to support continuous growth.
- Employee Recognition Program to celebrate achievements and milestones.
- Opportunities for career growth and leadership development.
- Collaborative startup environment with a chance to make a significant impact.
