Unusual Ventures

AI Engineer - Unusual Ventures

Unusual Ventures • $130K — $160K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3-6 years of software engineering experience, specifically with LLM-powered products or internal tools.
  • BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Proficient in Python; TypeScript experience is a plus.
  • Hands-on with LLM APIs, demonstrating the ability to evaluate tool appropriateness for tasks.
  • Strong product sense and user engagement to iterate effectively.
  • Experience with processing messy real-world data from various sources.
  • Effective communicator who can bridge technical and non-technical discussions.

Responsibilities

  • Design and build internal systems to enhance team efficiency and productivity.
  • Collaborate with various teams to identify high-leverage problems.
  • Develop talent intelligence tools to streamline recruiting processes.
  • Create sourcing and research tools to assist in early identification of promising companies.
  • Automate operational workflows to reduce manual processes and enhance reporting accuracy.
  • Support portfolio companies with AI-driven solutions and feature scoping.
  • Ensure firm knowledge assets are accessible and valuable to all team members.

Benefits

  • Ownership of projects and technical standards as the first AI Engineer.
  • Direct access to partners and the ability to impact decision-making.
  • Focus on meaningful problem-solving rather than just integrating existing tools.
  • Opportunities for collaboration with portfolio companies to influence their success.
  • A close-knit team environment that allows for high leverage and direct impact.
Full Job Description


We're hiring our first AI Engineer to build the internal systems that can help our small team operate with scalable leverage. You'll work across the firm - investing, talent, platform, founder services, finance and operations - finding the highest-leverage problems, then designing, building, and shipping tools people use every day.

You'll be our first engineer. That means real ownership and a lot of trust, and it also means you'll set the technical standards, choose the stack, and decide what's worth building.

This is a builder role. We care more about solving the underlying problem well than wiring together the newest APIs. You'll have real ownership, direct access to partners and operators, and a short path from idea to production.

From time to time you'll also work directly with portfolio companies: helping founders scope an AI feature, pressure-test their technical approach, or stand up an internal workflow.

What You'll Build (Example projects for your first year):

  • Talent intelligence. Agents and pipelines that find, enrich, and rank engineering and GTM talent for our portfolio - working closely with our Talent Partner to turn our recruiting judgment into repeatable systems.
  • Sourcing and research. Tools that surface promising companies and founders early, and context-aware research assistants that draw on our CRM, notes, meeting history, and market data to prep partners before a first meeting.
  • Diligence support. Workflows that speed up market maps, competitive analysis, customer-call synthesis, and memo drafting - without losing rigor.
  • Firm knowledge. Making what the firm already knows (thousands of founder and customer conversations, past memos, playbooks) searchable and useful.
  • Operations automation. Removing manual work from portfolio reporting, LP updates, and back-office processes, in partnership with the CFO/O and VP Finance.
  • Portfolio support. Reusable AI playbooks and tools that our founder services team can deploy across portfolio companies.


What We're Looking For (Required)

  • 3-6 years of software engineering experience, with at least 1-2 years shipping LLM-powered products or internal tools to production
  • BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
  • Strong Python (TypeScript a plus); comfortable across the stack, from data pipelines and APIs to a simple, usable front end
  • Hands-on experience with LLM APIs, retrieval, agents/tool use, and evaluation - and a clear view on when each is the wrong tool
  • Product taste: you talk to users, find the real problem, ship something small, and iterate
  • Experience working with messy real-world data (CRMs, email, calendars, third-party data providers)
  • Clear communicator who can explain tradeoffs to non-technical partners and earn their trust
  • Self-directed: comfortable setting priorities with light direction


Nice to have

  • Experience building internal tools or intelligence products at a VC firm, investment firm, or data-heavy operations team
  • Early-stage startup experience, or time as a founder
  • Familiarity with venture or enterprise software GTM
  • Experience with recruiting or people data
  • Public work - open-source projects, side projects, writing - that shows how you think and build


How We Work

  • Small team, high leverage. Your tools will be used daily by the whole firm, and you'll see the impact directly.
  • Build, don't just integrate. Buy off the shelf when it's the right call; build when the problem calls for it.
  • In person. We work together in the Bay Area office. Being close to the people using your tools is part of the job.
  • Founders first. Everything we build should ultimately make us more useful to the founders we back.


How to Apply

Send your resume or LinkedIn, plus a short note about something you've built with AI that people actually use - what the problem was, what you shipped, and what you'd do differently. Links to code or demos are welcome.

About Unusual Ventures

Unusual Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups. The firm was founded in 2018 by John Vrionis and Jyoti Bansal. Unusual Ventures focuses on investing in companies that are using technology to disrupt traditional industries. The firm has invested in companies such as Freenome, Figma, and Guild Education.
Learn more about Unusual Ventures
Size
10 employees
Industry
Founded
2018

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