Ventures Associate - Enterprise & AI

Plug and Play Tech Center

$80K — $120K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Strong technical foundation in computer science/engineering or equivalent software experience.
  • Familiarity with modern AI systems and data technologies like LLM applications and vector databases.
  • Capability to validate product claims through architecture and security inquiries.
  • Proven analytical skills to assess market sizes and synthesize diverse information.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills to convey technical ideas.
  • Genuine interest in startups, venture capital, and emerging tech trends.

Responsibilities

  • Build and refine investment theses in Enterprise AI and related sectors.
  • Source and evaluate early-stage companies through various channels.
  • Conduct technical diligence including architecture and scalability assessments.
  • Engage with corporate partners to identify technology gaps and innovation areas.
  • Translate enterprise needs into effective sourcing and diligence criteria.
  • Facilitate connections between startups and corporate partners.
  • Produce research reports and maintain market intelligence in focus areas.

Benefits

  • Gain comprehensive experience in venture capital and technical evaluation.
  • Develop valuable relationships with founders and enterprise executives.
  • Exposure to a wide range of deals from seed stage to growth stage.
  • Opportunity to contribute to thought leadership in the tech industry.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We're expanding our Enterprise & AI Ventures team and hiring a technical Associate who can evaluate complex AI/enterprise software products and translate that diligence into clear investment decisions. You'll build theses, run structured technical + market diligence on early-stage companies, and work closely with enterprise partners to understand real buyer needs and validate startup solutions.

This role is ideal for someone with an engineering mindset who wants to operate at the intersection of AI systems, enterprise workflows, and venture investing.

What You'll Do

Investment, Sourcing & Thesis Development
  • Build and refine investment theses across Enterprise AI and adjacent infrastructure (data, security, devtools, agentic systems).
  • Source and evaluate early-stage companies through a mix of inbound, outbound, and ecosystem channels.
  • Conduct technical diligence: architecture reviews, data infrastructure evaluation, and scalability analysis
  • Track emerging technologies, competitive landscapes, and venture activity across your focus areas


Enterprise Partner Engagement
  • Conduct structured interviews with corporate partners to understand technology gaps and innovation priorities
  • Translate enterprise needs into actionable sourcing + diligence criteria.
  • Facilitate introductions between startups/scaleups and corporate partners
  • Support executive briefings, demo days, and enterprise matchmaking.


Technical Contributions
  • Conduct structured product + architecture reviews (data flow, model approach, deployment model, integration pattern, scalability).
  • Assess feasibility and differentiation: "is this real?", "what breaks at scale?", "what's defensible?"
  • Engage in technical conversations with founders to assess team capabilities and product sophistication


Knowledge & Content
  • Maintain market maps, startup databases, and competitive intelligence in your focus areas
  • Produce research reports, investment memos, and market analyses for internal and external audiences
  • Contribute to thought leadership through blog posts, whitepapers, or speaking engagements


About You

Ideal Requirements
  • Strong technical foundation: CS/engineering background or equivalent experience shipping software.
  • Comfort evaluating modern AI systems and data stacks (e.g., LLM apps, RAG, fine-tuning, evals, vector DBs, warehouses/ETL, observability).
  • Ability to ask informed architecture/security questions and validate product claims
  • Demonstrated analytical skills: can size markets and synthesize complex information
  • Excellent written and verbal communication-able to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences
  • Genuine curiosity about startups, venture capital, and emerging technologies


Preferred
  • Experience at a startup or a tech firm in product engineering, solutions engineering, ML engineering, security engineering, or technical PM
  • Experience with technical content creation (blog posts, documentation, technical writing) or contributions to open source or side projects that show builder mentality


Why This Role

This is an opportunity to gain comprehensive venture capital experience while leveraging your technical background. You'll develop pattern recognition across hundreds of startups, build relationships with founders and enterprise executives, and gain exposure to deals from seed to high growth.

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