AI Engineer
One application -> a network of AI-transformation teams
MeritFirst is a curated talent network for high-growth and investor-backed companies - 8VC and Slow Ventures portfolio companies and many others. A growing set of our partners - AI-transformation funds, family offices, and operator-led investment teams - forward-deploy engineers into the real businesses they own and back.
Most engineers get filtered out by keyword screens before a human ever reads their application. We flip that: apply through MeritFirst, take a 20-minute work sample, and your actual ability goes straight to the hiring principal.
What you'd be doing
Deploy into real, profitable businesses - healthcare, professional services, multi-site operators, manufacturers - often in a sector you don't know yet
Decompose an ambiguous problem: talk to the head of engineering and the person running the machine, pull the right threads, decide what to build
Build production AI that moves the P&L - agents, automation, integrations - not pilots or slide decks
Work shoulder-to-shoulder with CEOs, COOs, and operators
Turn each engagement into a repeatable playbook the next deployment can reuse
Who we're looking for
You've shipped real software with LLMs and AI APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, or comparable); strong in Python plus TypeScript, SQL, or scripting
You thrive in ambiguity and minimal context - you're done building demos and want work that matters
Systems thinker who maps a workflow end to end and sees where AI creates leverage
You communicate as well with a non-technical operator as with an engineer
Bonus: multi-site operations, professional services, or PE-backed / operator-adjacent experience
Want to skip the line?
Take our 20-minute assessment - a real work sample that puts your problem-solving in front of a hiring principal faster than any resume.
Take it now and skip the line: AI Engineer Screener
Otherwise, we review applications in the order they arrive.