Founding AI Engineer (Computer Vision)On-site · Engineering, Product & Tech · Full time San Francisco, California, United StatesOur client is a stealth, seed-stage startup building an AI-powered wearable platform for industrial field technicians - running a real-time computer-vision and agentic AI system directly on smart-glasses hardware, live today with major data-center, energy, and industrial customers across multiple countries. Backed by a $5M seed round and founded by researchers from Harvard/NASA (computer vision, published at NeurIPS and ICCV) and MIT (machine learning, ex-quant researcher).The bet: computer vision and agentic vision-language models (VLMs) grounded in real integrations with legacy enterprise systems (ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce) - not another LLM wrapper. The industrial data this generates is also laying the groundwork for robotics automation down the line.As Founding AI Engineer, you'll own the AI core: an agentic vision-language model (VLM) system doing multimodal visual reasoning, evals, and model orchestration, running on real hardware against real industrial workflows - not benchmark demos.What you'll doBuild and ship agentic VLM systems that reliably do visual reasoning in production (detection, segmentation, image/video understanding)Own model orchestration and build real evals discipline (ground-truth, trajectory, or regression harnesses)Work directly with the founding team, shaping the AI roadmap from day oneLocation & cultureFully on-site in the SF Bay Area. The founding team lives and works together for the first several months in a shared house before moving to a standard office - expect an intense, in-person, roughly 9-9-6 pace. Hours flex for exceptional, senior talent; the priority is getting the right person, not saving on salary.RequirementsEssential1–5 years applied AI/ML experience, ideally computer vision or multimodal — a practical builder, not a career academicHas shipped multimodal/CV systems to production in the VLM era, owning the model layer end-to-endApplied VLM/multimodal engineering specifically — vision-language, not sensor-fusion, audio-only, or time-seriesApplied agentic AI/model orchestration plus real evals disciplineStartup or AI-team production experience, ideally as founder/CTO/founding engineerParticularly valuableEdge/on-device inference; on-prem serving and fine-tuning (vLLM, SFT, quantization)RAG against knowledge basesProduction AR/wearable AI or autonomous-driving CV experienceIndustrial domain exposureBenefitsCompensation & benefitsBase: $180K–$240KEquity: 0.25%–0.75%Visa sponsorship available (O-1, TN, E-3, H-1B1, H-1B transfer, F-1 OPT/STEM OPT)How to apply: resume plus a short description of the most complex production VLM/CV system you've shipped.
Founding AI Engineer (Computer Vision)
On-site · Engineering, Product & Tech · Full time San Francisco, California, United States
Our client is a stealth, seed-stage startup building an AI-powered wearable platform for industrial field technicians - running a real-time computer-vision and agentic AI system directly on smart-glasses hardware, live today with major data-center, energy, and industrial customers across multiple countries. Backed by a $5M seed round and founded by researchers from Harvard/NASA (computer vision, published at NeurIPS and ICCV) and MIT (machine learning, ex-quant researcher).
The bet: computer vision and agentic vision-language models (VLMs) grounded in real integrations with legacy enterprise systems (ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce) - not another LLM wrapper. The industrial data this generates is also laying the groundwork for robotics automation down the line.
As Founding AI Engineer, you'll own the AI core: an agentic vision-language model (VLM) system doing multimodal visual reasoning, evals, and model orchestration, running on real hardware against real industrial workflows - not benchmark demos.
What you'll do
- Build and ship agentic VLM systems that reliably do visual reasoning in production (detection, segmentation, image/video understanding)
- Own model orchestration and build real evals discipline (ground-truth, trajectory, or regression harnesses)
- Work directly with the founding team, shaping the AI roadmap from day one
Location & culture
Fully on-site in the SF Bay Area. The founding team lives and works together for the first several months in a shared house before moving to a standard office - expect an intense, in-person, roughly 9-9-6 pace. Hours flex for exceptional, senior talent; the priority is getting the right person, not saving on salary.
Requirements
Essential
- 1–5 years applied AI/ML experience, ideally computer vision or multimodal — a practical builder, not a career academic
- Has shipped multimodal/CV systems to production in the VLM era, owning the model layer end-to-end
- Applied VLM/multimodal engineering specifically — vision-language, not sensor-fusion, audio-only, or time-series
- Applied agentic AI/model orchestration plus real evals discipline
- Startup or AI-team production experience, ideally as founder/CTO/founding engineer
Particularly valuable
- Edge/on-device inference; on-prem serving and fine-tuning (vLLM, SFT, quantization)
- RAG against knowledge bases
- Production AR/wearable AI or autonomous-driving CV experience
- Industrial domain exposure
Benefits
Compensation & benefits
- Base: $180K–$240K
- Equity: 0.25%–0.75%
- Visa sponsorship available (O-1, TN, E-3, H-1B1, H-1B transfer, F-1 OPT/STEM OPT)
How to apply: resume plus a short description of the most complex production VLM/CV system you've shipped.
Sales & Engineering professionals: unlock your potential with roles perfect for you.The AI hiring market is evolving fast, and the right opportunity can take your career to the next level.At EQL Tech, we connect the top 1% of Sales, GTM & Engineering talent with the most ambitious and innovative AI-native early-stage startups and rapidly scaling tech powerhouses.Your next step starts here. Let’s make it count.
Sales & Engineering professionals: unlock your potential with roles perfect for you.
The AI hiring market is evolving fast, and the right opportunity can take your career to the next level.
At EQL Tech, we connect the top 1% of Sales, GTM & Engineering talent with the most ambitious and innovative AI-native early-stage startups and rapidly scaling tech powerhouses.
Your next step starts here. Let’s make it count.
