AI Engineer Founding AI Team Reporting Directly to Partner
If you want to move fast, ship real things, and have outsized impact at a leading PE firm-keep reading.
Position Summary: K1 is seeking an AI Engineer to join our founding AI team in Manhattan Beach, CA.
This is not a typical role. You will be one of the founding members of K1's internal AI function,
reporting directly to a Founding Partner with no middle management, no busywork, and real ownership from day one. You will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, enterprise software, and private equity operations - shipping real automations, building real tools, and driving real impact across a portfolio of 275+ companies. The right candidate will embody the values of K1 - Passion, Persistence, Humility, and Excellence.
Key Responsibilities: - Designing, building, and deploying AI-powered automations using Claude, Microsoft 365 (Power Automate, Copilot, SharePoint), and custom integrations to eliminate manual processes across the firm and portfolio companies;
- Rapidly prototyping AI tools and agents - from competitive intelligence scrapers to board-report generators - and iterating quickly based on real user feedback;
- Evaluating emerging AI models, tools, and frameworks and synthesizing findings into actionable recommendations for the investment team;
- Building internal dashboards, data pipelines, and agentic workflows that give K1's investment professionals an unfair advantage;
- Performing other duties as assigned.
Requirements: - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Business + CS, or a related field;
- At least one prior internship/role or substantive project experience in AI/ML, software engineering, or data science;
- Proficiency with Claude (Anthropic) as a daily working tool - prompt engineering, multi-step workflows, and integration into real tasks;
- Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 (Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams); familiarity with Power Automate or Copilot Studio is a plus;
- Proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript - you don't need to be a systems engineer, but you need to be able to ship working code;
- Bias toward action, comfort with ambiguity, and a genuine obsession with where AI is headed;
- Ability to work in-office in Manhattan Beach 5 days per week.
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