Founding AI Lead (Start-up Venture Backed)

Founding AI Lead (Start-up Venture Backed)

Position Details

• Employment: Full-Time
• Security Clearance: N/A
• Travel: To HQ as needed, on-site presence at client sites when required
• Compensation: Competitive Salary + Benefits Package

About Our RightSeat.AI

At RightSeat.AI, we are dedicated to transforming the future with advanced artificial intelligence. We assist companies in streamlining operations, enhancing customer experiences, and driving innovation. At RightSeat.AI, we promote a dynamic, inclusive work environment where every voice is valued. Whether you re starting your career or seeking new challenges, you ll have opportunities to grow, learn, and make a meaningful impact.

About Our Client

Our client is a Sequoia-backed cybersecurity startup developing a groundbreaking enterprise security platform purpose-built for the AI era.

Founded by entrepreneurs with multiple successful outcomes, the team brings deep expertise from leading security companies and has played key roles in the development of Microsoft s Security Copilot and Microsoft Defender. Their previous ventures have led to major industry acquisitions and the creation of widely adopted threat intelligence solutions.

Now, our client is building its core R&D team to shape the future of AI-native cybersecurity. This is a rare opportunity to help build a foundational company for the AI era, starting from day one.

Position

Founding AI Lead Help Build the Future of Cybersecurity Intelligence

Our client is hiring a Founding AI Lead to drive the development of real-time, intent-aware intelligence at the edge. This role blends deep technical expertise with strategic vision, sitting at the crossroads of machine learning, systems design, and cybersecurity.

You ll be responsible for shaping the architecture and deployment of AI across the product, from early-stage research to production-ready systems. This includes designing evaluation frameworks for security-specific use cases, fine-tuning advanced models using techniques like SFT and RLHF, and deploying efficient AI on resource-constrained endpoints where speed and subtlety are critical.

This is not a theoretical role. It s for someone eager to bring AI into live environments where it directly impacts threat detection and response.

You ll work closely with engineering, product, and design teams to ensure AI is embedded as a core capability, not an afterthought. Your work will influence everything from infrastructure and model governance to how users interpret and act on security insights.

We value speed, trust, and a mission-driven mindset. Join us in reimagining cybersecurity for everyday users not just experts.

Key Responsibilities

As a key part of the founding R&D team, you ll work side by side with the company s founders, helping to shape our client's vision and drive its breakthrough technology to market.

• Help define our AI roadmap what we build, how we measure success, and how we stay ahead of adversaries
• Shape foundational systems, standards, and practices for AI from the ground up
• Architect contextual pipelines that give models meaningful, real-time visibility into endpoint activity
• Design and implement benchmarks to evaluate model performance on real-world security use cases
• Fine-tune frontier and open-source models (using SFT, RLHF, or custom methods) to boost accuracy and reduce hallucinations
• Evaluate tradeoffs between model complexity, interpretability, and runtime cost in high-stakes environments
• Deploy and maintain classical ML models across both edge and backend systems where appropriate
• Optimize AI performance at the edge balancing latency, accuracy, and resource constraints
• Build agentic systems that run locally to help users investigate and remediate threats autonomously
• Collaborate closely with engineering, product, and design to tightly integrate AI into the user experience

  Required Qualifications

• Deeply experienced in classical AI/ML, with a sharp curiosity for generative models and the evolving frontier of LLMs
• Hands-on and scrappy you prototype with code, test ideas quickly, and learn from real-world feedback
• Oriented toward users: you care about how AI meets the person behind the screen, not just metrics
• Comfortable designing and evaluating experiments to measure model performance in noisy, open-ended domains
• You use AI tools daily and think critically about where they help, where they fail, and how to improve them
• Fluent in scripting or backend programming (Python preferred) and able to build end-to-end pipelines when needed
• Thrive in ambiguity able to reason from first principles and push through uncertainty
• Eager to collaborate across disciplines and build with product, design, and engineering in the loop
• Excited by the pace and challenge of early-stage startups where you shape not just the tech, but the culture
• Motivated by impact and mission helping users stay safe through smarter, more proactive security

  Preferred Attributes

• You ve shipped AI/ML systems into production, taking projects from prototype to real-world impact
• You ve worked in fast-paced startup environments and thrive in ambiguity, autonomy, and rapid iteration
• You bring hands-on experience in cybersecurity, with a strong grasp of real-world use cases and operational constraints
• You ve deployed models at the edge, optimizing for latency, accuracy, and limited compute environments
• You ve contributed to agentic systems, designing AI that operates independently and supports user workflows

Why Work for Our Client

• Small, Impact-Driven Team. We operate without layers of hierarchy or formal titles. Every core R&D member owns their domain and is accountable to the team. Collaboration and shared responsibility are at the heart of how we work.
• Move Fast, Learn Faster. We prioritize rapid iteration shipping code and features in days, not months. This speed fuels a tight feedback loop with our network of Global 2000 CISOs. Progress matters more than perfection.
• Urgency with Purpose. We recognize the rare opportunity to build a lasting company in the AI era and we re moving with the urgency that moment demands.
• Talent Attracts Talent. We aim to build a team of exceptional people. You ll work alongside others who are just as driven, capable, and committed as you are.
• Low Ego, High Trust. We value humility, teamwork, and a drama-free environment. Collaboration beats showmanship always.

Our Clients Benefits

At Our Client, team members enjoy a comprehensive compensation and benefits package designed to support both professional and personal well-being. As part of a Sequoia-backed startup, you will have the opportunity to share in the company s long-term success. Health, dental, and vision coverage are provided to ensure you and your loved ones have access to quality care. In addition, flexible paid time off empowers you to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement

RightSeat.AI is dedicated to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, merit, and business needs, without regard to race, religion, gender, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristics.