Job Description
NYC Open to Relocation Full-time or Contract-to-hire Competitive salary + equity based on experience
About our Company Were a small team of engineers, creatives, and researchers building new kinds of interactive experiences powered by AI. Were launching The Interface: a platform for expressive, real-time characters that people can talk to and explore shared worlds alongside. Its a mix of entertainment and social.
We just wrapped up YC (S25) and raised a sizeable seed round from top investors. Max (CEO) studied MechE at MIT, previously led AI initiatives at McKinsey; Peyton (CTO) is an MIT CS grad and former quant at Citadel. Were setting up in NYC a hacker house-style space and moving quickly toward launch.
About the Role Were looking for a Founding AI Engineer to build the intelligence layer behind our real-time characters. Youll be developing low-latency, expressive AI systems powering voice, personality, and narrative consistency so that users can have rich, dynamic interactions with characters.
This is a highly creative engineering role: youll run experiments across voice models, prompting strategies, and generative systems; help define how characters maintain memory and personality; and ensure everything runs in real time with minimal latency.
What Youll Do - Build and optimize real-time voice models and pipelines for natural, low-latency speech
- Develop personality systems, context management, and narrative consistency tools
- Experiment with prompting, fine-tuning, and custom model integration
- Explore generative techniques (e.g. diffusion, multimodal tools) to launch new product features
- Collaborate with rendering engineers to tightly connect voice, visuals, and behavior
- Create metrics and frameworks for evaluating reliability, latency, and engagement
- Prototype and ship AI features directly into the product with fast iteration cycles
You Might Be a Fit If You - Have 36+ years of experience in ML/AI engineering (especially real-time systems)
- Are comfortable with voice models / conversational AI
- Have worked with prompting, fine-tuning, or custom model deployment
- Understand how to balance performance, cost, and latency in production AI systems
- Have experience with generative models (text, voice, image, or multimodal)
- Are excited by fast-paced, hands-on experimentation in new AI applications
- Enjoy building at the intersection of engineering and creativity
Why Join Us - Youll be one of the first 5 team members
- Youll work directly with the founders (MIT backgrounds, bias to action)
- We just raised a sizeable seed round and are backed by top investors
- Youll own the intelligence layer of our characters and product
- Were building an entertainment platform and want to have fun doing it
- Youll help shape the foundation of how AI feels, sounds, and interacts in real time
PIdb1cb0dfce1a-38003-38711097
Job Tags
Full time, Contract work, Part time, Relocation,