Head of Engineering (Applied AI and Data Infrastructure)
$350,000–$400,000 Base + Top of Line Benefits
Greater New York area; hybrid, minimum 3 days in office
The Company
An established, high-performing technology and investment platform is building a new AI and data function to improve how its teams find opportunities, understand markets, and make decisions.
The organization operates in a relationship-driven, data-rich environment with access to highly differentiated company, market, financial, and people data.
The Opportunity
This is a chance to build like a startup inside a well-capitalised, long-term platform with strong internal demand for better AI-native tools.
You will become the technical centerpiece of a new engineering function, taking scrappy internal systems and turning them into scalable products used by sophisticated commercial stakeholders.
The Role
You will own the engineering, data, and AI systems that help internal teams identify patterns, surface opportunities, automate workflows, and extract insight from complex proprietary datasets.
The role is hands-on and highly visible: part senior IC, part technical lead, part product-minded builder, with scope to shape the architecture, roadmap, and future team.
What You’ll Do
Build and scale proprietary AI and data products that support opportunity identification, market mapping, workflow automation, research, and decision support.
Architect data infrastructure across internal systems, CRM data, financial data, operational reporting, market signals, and third-party datasets.
Develop systems that surface non-obvious signals across companies, people, open-source activity, hiring patterns, financing activity, and market data.
Build APIs, workflow tools, AI agents, model-serving infrastructure, and internal applications that help teams move faster and make better decisions.
Lead hands-on development while guiding contractors and future engineering hires.
Partner directly with senior internal users to understand workflows, translate needs into product, and ship high-impact tools.
Help define the long-term technical roadmap, engineering standards, and team structure for a new strategic function.
What You’ll Bring
Strong hands-on software engineering background, ideally from a startup, founding engineer, technical founder, CTO, senior IC, or tech lead path.
Proven ability to build products and systems from zero to one in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
Deep experience across software engineering, data infrastructure, APIs, cloud-native systems, and AI-enabled product development.
High fluency with modern AI tools, agents, LLM workflows, evals, observability, orchestration, and applied AI systems.
Strong product instincts and the ability to work directly with demanding internal users.
Resourceful, proactive, high-agency operating style with the ability to create structure where no playbook exists.
Strong communication skills and enough EQ to work closely with commercial stakeholders without needing heavy translation from non-technical teammates.
What This Role Requires
Must be genuinely hands-on and comfortable coding, prototyping, debugging, reviewing architecture, and making technical decisions directly.
Must have strong software and data engineering fundamentals, not just product management or contractor-management experience.
Must be excited by building internal AI and data products used by high-impact business teams.
Must be comfortable operating as a player-coach in a lean, early-stage engineering function.
Must be able to work hybrid from the Greater New York area.
Tech Stack
Python
Node.js
React
SQL
DBT
Databricks
ETL / ELT frameworks
AWS, Azure, GCP, or equivalent cloud platforms
LangChain or similar orchestration frameworks
MLOps, model deployment, evaluation frameworks, vector stores, and agent orchestration
Why Join
Build AI-native systems on top of uniquely valuable proprietary data, with direct impact on how senior teams identify opportunities and make decisions.
Work closely with sophisticated internal users who are eager to adopt better tools and provide fast, high-quality feedback.
Shape a new engineering function from the ground up, with meaningful ownership over architecture, product direction, hiring, and technical culture.
About People in AI
People in AI is a specialist recruitment partner connecting exceptional AI, machine learning, data, and engineering talent with some of the most ambitious technology companies in the world. We work closely with founders, technical leaders, and hiring teams to represent opportunities accurately and help candidates assess genuine fit.
