VP of Engineering – AI
BjakBuild, scale, and uphold the technical backbone of a global AI product - while leading by example through real systems and real code.
A1 is a self-funded AI group, operating in full stealth. We’re building a new global consumer AI application where long-term success depends on deep technical rigor, strong execution, and disciplined engineering culture.
This is a founding executive-level engineering role. You will personally build critical AI systems while shaping engineering culture, hiring strategy, and long-term technical direction. This is not a pure management role - you lead by building.
Why This Role Matters
You set the technical and cultural foundation of the AI organization
You own AI quality, reliability, and scalability end-to-end
You balance research ambition with real product delivery
You act as the final technical decision-maker
What You’ll Do
Personally build and maintain core AI infrastructure
Design model training, evaluation, and deployment pipelines
Debug and resolve production AI failures
Review and merge critical PRs
Define standards for model lifecycle and experimentation
Design org structure and hiring strategy
Align AI roadmap with business goals
Requirements
10+ years of engineering experience
Deep ML expertise across training, tuning, and evaluation
Proven track record shipping AI-heavy products
Strong Python-heavy coding ability
Experience leading engineers by example
Nice to Have
Built ML systems from zero
Comfortable reading and implementing research
Strong intuition for model, data, and infrastructure tradeoffs
Our Team & Culture
We operate as a dense, senior, high-performance team. We value clarity, speed, craftsmanship, and relentless ownership. We behave like founders — we build, ship, iterate, and hold ourselves to a high technical bar.
If you value excellence, enjoy building real systems, and want to be part of a small team creating something globally impactful, you’ll thrive here.
About A1
A1 is a self-funded, independent AI group, focused on building a new consumer AI product with global impact. We’re assembling a small, elite team of ML and engineering builders who want to work on meaningful, high-impact problems.