VP of Research, Machine Learning

What You'll Do

• Set and evolve the research direction for A1’s core intelligence, including context representation, memory, reasoning, planning, and orchestration.
• Decide when to design new model architectures versus adapting or leveraging frontier open-source or commercial models.
• Define evaluation frameworks that measure real-world usefulness, robustness, safety, and long-term behavior – not benchmark vanity.
• Own alignment, safety, and guardrail strategy as first-class product concerns.
• Guide exploration of frontier techniques such as: retrieval-augmented training, mixture-of-experts, distillation, multi-agent orchestration, multimodal systems.
• Shape early product intelligence direction in close partnership with product and application engineering.
• Set the technical bar for research rigor, judgment, and taste across the organization.

Requirements

• Deep experience building or evolving real machine learning systems used in production.
• Strong technical judgment around model behavior, failure modes, and long-horizon trade-offs.
• A builder’s mindset: you care about systems that work in the real world, not just ideas.
• Comfortable making irreversible or high-impact decisions with incomplete information.
• Obsession with evaluation, correctness, and how systems behave over time.
• High ownership mentality — you operate as a founder, not a manager.

How We Work

• The organization is very flat and the team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering and product excellence.
• All members are expected to be hands-on and contribute directly to the company’s mission.

Interview Process

• If there appears to be a fit, we'll reach out to schedule 3, but no more than 4 interviews.
• Applications are evaluated by our technical team members.
• Interviews will be conducted via virtual meetings and/or onsite.
• We value transparency and efficiency, so expect a prompt decision.