Top Stealth Mode Portfolio Company Jobs

Overview of Role

Heretic Ventures is seeking an experienced VP of Engineering to join an early stage generative AI consumer business that Heretic Ventures is launching.

The ideal candidate is a technical leader who has successfully launched a consumer internet application from 0-to-1, demonstrating experience in engineering and scaling technical operations. This individual will play a crucial role in shaping our technology strategy, building a high-performing engineering and operations team, timely and efficient development, and driving all aspects of technology to achieve our business objectives.

This is a unique opportunity to help build a billion-dollar company from the ground up while learning from successful repeat entrepreneurs and a stable of powerful and experienced mentors and advisors. 

This is a hybrid role with the preference for 3 days per week in-person in our sunny Presidio, SF office. The position is compensated with salary, benefits, and equity.  

About Heretic 

Heretic Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture studio ideating and launching new businesses in the creator economy, including those that capitalize on AI/ML technology. Heretic is run by Managing Partner Mariam Naficy, who founded and built the pioneering internet companies Minted and Eve.com. Heretic is backed by household names in Silicon Valley (investors and entrepreneurs), who act as the studio’s advisors both in selecting and in advising companies.

Responsibilities

• Leadership and Strategy:
• Provide strategic direction and technical leadership in the development and execution of our technology roadmap.
• Collaborate with the executive team to align engineering goals with overall business objectives.
• Define and implement engineering processes, best practices, and standards to ensure efficient and scalable operations.

• Team Building and Management:
• Recruit, mentor, and manage a top-tier engineering team, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and high performance.
• Empower and develop team members, fostering their professional growth and providing guidance and support.
• Create a positive work environment that encourages creativity, learning, and continuous improvement.

• Technical Architecture and Development:
• Design and implement a robust, scalable, and secure technology platform to support our marketplace operations.
• Lead the end-to-end development lifecycle, from product ideation and design to deployment and maintenance.
• Work closely with AI/ML leadership to incorporate generative AI models & capabilities in the core technology stack
• Go from high-to-low and contribute to engineering development efforts when appropriate

• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
• Foster strong relationships with external partners, vendors, and third-party technology providers.
• Collaborate closely with product management, design, operations, and other stakeholders to ensure alignment and seamless execution of projects.
• Work closely with the executive team to communicate technical strategy, progress, and challenges.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (advanced degree preferred).
• Experience at a consumer internet marketplace is required.
• Proven track record of successfully launching a consumer Internet application from 0-to-1 and leading all aspects of engineering and technology operations.
• Extensive experience in software engineering, including architecture design and software development is required.
• Experience ensuring the availability and reliability of consumer-facing production systems (either directly or managing teams) is required.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to build, motivate and inspire engineering and operations teams, foster collaboration, and drive results.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical abilities, with a keen attention to detail.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment.

• Experience with emerging generative AI technologies

Overview of Role

Heretic Ventures is seeking an experienced Senior Software Engineer with extensive back-end Python experience to join an early stage generative AI consumer business that Heretic Ventures is launching. 

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in building scalable and high-performance back-end systems from the ground up (preferably in e-commerce) and is ready to work with new technologies and architectures in a flexible, forward-thinking organization that’s always pushing boundaries. This person’s firm understanding of web frameworks, APIs, databases, and back-end Python development will be instrumental in shaping the success and technical evolution of the platform.

This is a unique opportunity to help build a billion-dollar company from the ground up while learning from successful repeat entrepreneurs and a stable of powerful and experienced mentors and advisors. 

This is a hybrid role with the expectation of 3 days per week in-person in our sunny Presidio, SF office. The position is compensated with salary, benefits, and equity.

About Heretic 

Heretic Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture studio ideating and launching new businesses in the creator economy, including those that capitalize on AI/ML technology. Heretic is run by Managing Partner Mariam Naficy, who founded and built the pioneering internet companies Minted and Eve.com. Heretic is backed by household names in Silicon Valley (investors and entrepreneurs), who act as the studio’s advisors both in selecting and in advising companies.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical decisions and architectural design from 0-to-1 to ensure high-quality code and adherence to best practices.
• Design, develop, and maintain robust and scalable back-end systems using Python and related technologies.
• Lead devops and deployment, handling deployment configurations, setup, and maintenance of CI / CD pipelines
• Lead efforts to ensure the security and integrity of the platform, taking ownership of platform security throughout the development lifecycle.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including AI scientists and front-end engineers, to build and integrate AI-driven features into the platform.
• Optimize system performance, troubleshoot issues, and ensure smooth operation of the platform.
• Develop and maintain documentation, including technical specifications, system diagrams, and deployment processes.
• Stay up to date with emerging technologies, industry trends, and best practices to continuously improve our platform.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 7+ years of professional experience as a Software Engineer, with a strong focus on back-end development using Python.
• Proven track record of delivering complex, scalable, and high-performance software systems.
• Solid understanding of software engineering principles, data structures, and algorithms.
• Experience with designing and implementing RESTful APIs with Flask and integrating third-party services.
• Proficient in working with relational databases, such as PostgreSQL or MySQL, and knowledge of SQL query optimization.
• Proficient with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP) and containerization technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, agile environment.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams.

• Experience with (or desire to learn) generative AI technologies, such as diffusion models and LLMs (e.g., Stable Diffusion, GPT) and deep learning frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch)
• Knowledge of e-commerce platforms, payment gateways, and related technologies
• Familiarity with frontend technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• Previous startup experience, especially in an early-stage environment

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Heretic is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to inclusion and diversity. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives and will consider all qualified applicants for employment in accordance with all state, local, and federal laws.

Overview of Role

We are seeking an experienced AI/ML Engineer to found a new GenAI consumer media platform, working alongside CEO Irfan Manji. Irfan is a veteran consumer product leader, with a history of successful 0-to-1 product launches at Meta (Instagram) and Zillow. The company is funded by Heretic Ventures.

The ideal candidate has deep experience training, deploying and maintaining ML models at scale for consumer products. They are curious and excited about generative AI - ideally with experience fine-tuning image models (e.g. Stable Diffusion). They will stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in AI technologies, and partner strategically with the CEO to apply those technologies to innovative new consumer applications and features. This person will be comfortable with building and maintaining the data architecture to procure and pre-process data for model training. 

This is a unique opportunity to help build a billion-dollar company from the ground up while learning from successful repeat entrepreneurs, product leaders, and a bench of powerful and experienced mentors and advisors. While we prefer a permanent founding engineer, we are open to discussing a contract role - please approach us to discuss. 

This is a hybrid role with the expectation of 3 days per week in-person in our sunny Presidio, SF office. The position is compensated with salary, benefits, and equity. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

About Heretic

Heretic Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture studio launching new consumer businesses, including those that capitalize on AI/ML technology. Heretic is run by Managing Partner Mariam Naficy, who founded and built the pioneering internet companies Minted and Eve.com. Heretic is backed by household names in Silicon Valley (investors and entrepreneurs), who act as the studio’s advisors.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate closely with the CEO (as part of the founding team) to develop product strategy, scope AI needs, and build MVPs that can be rapidly deployed for testing
• Train, deploy and maintain AI models in production environments, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Build and maintain data architecture that procures and pre-processes data for model training.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in AI technologies and research, and apply them to enhance the performance and capabilities of our ventures.
• Communicate complex AI concepts and solutions effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Be aware of different and recommend options for implementing, developing, or tuning the models that are needed to drive the various business ideas

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics,  Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 5+ years of professional experience working on applied AI projects, preferably in a product development or research environment.
• Experience building consumer-facing products, including partnering with full-stack & front-end eng to tie AI/ML infrastructure to a scaled front-end experience.
• Strong knowledge of Python, with experience in popular machine learning libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Solid understanding of machine learning concepts and algorithms.
• Experience with training and fine-tuning AI models and working with large-scale training datasets.
• Proficiency in data preprocessing, feature engineering, and exploratory data analysis.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and experience with deploying AI models in cloud-based environments.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, with a strong attention to detail.
• Effective communication and teamwork abilities, with the capacity to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Experience fine-tuning Stable Diffusion models for specific product use cases.
• Experience with ML-based content ranking.
• Experience fine-tuning OpenAI GPT models for specific product use cases.
• Contributions to open-source AI projects or publications in relevant conferences or journals.

Overview of Role

Heretic Ventures is seeking an Applied AI/ML Engineer with at least 1-2 years of professional experience to join an early stage generative AI consumer business that Heretic Ventures is launching.

The ideal candidate has strong knowledge of Python, experience with generative AI model training & fine-tuning, and has worked in professional environments with engineering or AI/ML teams.  This engineer will participate in the full end to end deep learning pipeline from data collection to model deployment. You'll wear many hats, but your primary focus will be on making our AI models better (and defining what better means by setting up amazing evaluation metrics).

This is a unique opportunity to help build a billion-dollar company from the ground up while learning from successful repeat entrepreneurs and a stable of powerful and experienced mentors and advisors. 

This is a hybrid role with the expectation of 3 days per week in-person in our sunny Presidio, SF office. The position is compensated with salary, benefits, and equity.

About Heretic 

Heretic Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture studio ideating and launching new businesses in the creator economy, including those that capitalize on AI/ML technology. Heretic is run by Managing Partner Mariam Naficy, who founded and built the pioneering internet companies Minted and Eve.com. Heretic is backed by household names in Silicon Valley (investors and entrepreneurs), who act as the studio’s advisors both in selecting and in advising companies.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to train and fine-tune machine learning models and systems for consumer-focused ventures.
• Fine-tune foundational machine learning algorithms and models for various generative AI applications, including text-to-image diffusion models, large language models, and other emerging generative AI.
• Develop multi-model architectures to meet product & business requirements for new venture concepts.
• Collect, preprocess, and analyze data to extract meaningful insights and improve the performance of AI models.
• Deploy and maintain AI models in production environments, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in AI technologies and research, and apply them to enhance the performance and capabilities of our ventures.
• Communicate complex AI concepts and solutions effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics,  Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 1-2 years of professional experience working on applied AI projects, preferably in a product development or research environment.
• Strong knowledge of Python, with experience in popular machine learning libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Solid understanding of machine learning concepts and algorithms.
• Experience with training and fine-tuning AI models and working with large-scale datasets.
• Proficiency in data preprocessing, feature engineering, and exploratory data analysis.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and experience with deploying AI models in cloud-based environments.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, with a strong attention to detail.
• Effective communication and teamwork abilities, with the capacity to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Experience fine-tuning Stable Diffusion models for specific product use cases.
• Experience fine-tuning OpenAI GPT models for specific product use cases.
• Contributions to open-source AI projects or publications in relevant conferences or journals.

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Heretic is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to inclusion and diversity. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives and will consider all qualified applicants for employment in accordance with all state, local, and federal laws.