Founding Applied AI Research Engineer (Equity Opportunity) - US only

Compensation: $120k – $140k

# Founding Applied AI Research Engineer (Equity Opportunity) ### Build the Future of AI for Behavioral Healthcare We're building an AI platform that is transforming behavioral healthcare by combining advanced artificial intelligence, clinical science, and human-centered design. Our products are already deployed in real healthcare environments, supporting clinicians and patients through intelligent decision support, nascent aspects of digital therapeutics, AI-assisted workforce training, and longitudinal patient engagement. In addition, we have also been selected as a semi-finalist at Prime Health Innovation, Colarado Safety net organizations and at Halcyon Health cohort. This role is only for US based citizens / legal residents. As we enter our next phase of growth—with expanding enterprise deployments, strategic partnerships, and anticipated federal contracting opportunities—we're looking for an exceptional **Founding Applied AI Research Engineer** to help shape both our research agenda and our technology platform. This is more than an engineering role. It is an opportunity to become one of the technical leaders who defines the scientific, technical, and product direction of the company. We're not simply hiring an employee—we're looking for someone who wants to help build the company. For the right person who demonstrates exceptional technical leadership, ownership, and long-term commitment, this role offers a clear path toward becoming part of the company's founding leadership, including potential Co-Founder status ## About the Role We're looking for an Applied AI Research Engineer who thrives at the intersection of scientific discovery and product innovation. You'll help establish and lead our AI research efforts—identifying high-impact research questions, designing rigorous studies, building evaluation pipelines, analyzing clinical and behavioral datasets, developing novel AI methodologies, and contributing to peer-reviewed publications, technical reports, patents, and federal research proposals. At the same time, you'll work alongside our engineering team to transform research into production-ready AI systems that power clinician decision support, digital therapeutics, simulation-based workforce training, and next-generation behavioral healthcare applications. This is an opportunity to build not only innovative technology, but also a recognized body of research that advances the field while creating measurable impact in healthcare. ## What You'll Do ### AI Research & Innovation * Identify novel research opportunities across artificial intelligence, digital health, behavioral health, and clinical decision support. * Design rigorous experimental studies and evaluation methodologies. * Build reproducible research pipelines and benchmarking frameworks. * Develop novel AI algorithms, multimodal learning approaches, and intelligent agent architectures. * Analyze structured, unstructured, behavioral, voice, and longitudinal clinical datasets. * Evaluate state-of-the-art foundation models and determine their applicability to healthcare. * Publish technical findings in peer-reviewed journals and leading AI or healthcare conferences where appropriate. * Contribute to patents, invention disclosures, white papers, and federally funded research proposals (NIH, NSF, SBIR/STTR, ARPA-H, HRSA, and related programs). * Collaborate with clinicians, researchers, universities, and healthcare partners on translational AI research. ### Engineering & Product Development * Build scalable production AI systems using modern LLMs, multimodal AI, and agentic architectures. * Develop AI copilots, clinical decision-support systems, intelligent workflows, and simulation environments. * Design secure cloud-native infrastructure for enterprise healthcare deployments. * Build APIs, evaluation frameworks, knowledge retrieval systems, and data pipelines. * Optimize AI systems for reliability, explainability, safety, and regulatory readiness. * Help define the long-term technical architecture of the company's AI platform. ## Qualifications ### Required * 4–8+ years of professional experience in software engineering, machine learning, applied AI, or AI research. * Strong foundation in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Computational Science, or a related discipline. * Master's degree with PhD preferred; exceptional Bachelor's candidates with significant experience will be considered. * Strong programming skills in Python and experience developing production-quality software. * Experience building AI applications using modern LLMs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, prompt engineering, and model evaluation techniques. * Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. * Strong understanding of software architecture, APIs, distributed systems, containers, CI/CD, and scalable backend services. * Experience designing experiments, evaluating model performance, and communicating technical findings. ### Preferred Experience with one or more of the following: * PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, Hugging Face Transformers * LangChain, LangGraph, Model Context Protocol (MCP), AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar orchestration frameworks * Vector databases and semantic search (Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, pgvector, Chroma) * Knowledge graphs and graph databases * Speech AI, NLP, multimodal AI, reinforcement learning, or multi-agent systems * Healthcare AI, digital health, behavioral health, or clinical informatics * Statistical analysis, causal inference, or real-world evidence generation * Privacy-preserving AI, federated learning, or responsible AI * Publications, patents, open-source contributions, or significant technical leadership ## What Makes This Opportunity Different This isn't simply an opportunity to build another AI application. You'll help create an AI platform that supports clinicians, expands access to behavioral healthcare, improves workforce capacity through simulation and intelligent training, and enables earlier intervention through predictive analytics and personalized care. Your work may lead to: * Peer-reviewed scientific publications * Novel intellectual property and patents * Federally funded AI research initiatives * Real-world deployment across healthcare systems * AI technologies that directly improve clinical outcomes and patient lives You'll have the freedom to explore ambitious ideas while also seeing those ideas deployed into production—an uncommon combination that bridges research and real-world impact. ## Why Join Now? * Production platform already deployed in healthcare environments * Strong clinical partnerships and access to real-world use cases * Active enterprise growth and expanding market opportunities * Significant federal funding and public-sector initiatives in progress * Opportunity to define the company's AI research agenda from the beginning * High-impact technical leadership with substantial equity ownership * Direct collaboration with experienced healthcare, AI, and business leaders ## Compensation This is currently an **equity-based founding opportunity** for someone who believes in building long-term value alongside the founding team. This will transition to a co-founding role. We're seeking an entrepreneurial builder who is motivated by ownership, technical leadership, scientific innovation, and the opportunity to create lasting impact. As the company reaches key commercial and funding milestones, this role is expected to evolve into a senior technical leadership position with competitive cash compensation in addition to equity. ## If This Sounds Like You... If you're energized by solving difficult problems, publishing meaningful research, building production-scale AI systems, and helping redefine the future of behavioral healthcare, we'd love to hear from you. Join us in building AI that doesn't just impress researchers—it improves lives.