Unusual is a growth consultancy that helps companies win over a new audience: AI agents. Backed by Y Combinator.
About the role
We're hiring our first AI Engineer to build the internal systems that can help our small team operate with scalable leverage. You'll work across the firm — investing, talent, platform, founder services, finance and operations — finding the highest-leverage problems, then designing, building, and shipping tools people use every day. You'll be our first engineer. That means real ownership and a lot of trust, and it also means you'll set the technical standards, choose the stack, and decide what's worth building. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.
What they're looking for
- 3–6 years of software engineering experience, with at least 1–2 years shipping LLM-powered products or internal tools to production
- BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- Strong Python (TypeScript a plus), comfortable across the stack, from data pipelines and APIs to a simple, usable front end
- Hands-on experience with LLM APIs, retrieval, agents/tool use, and evaluation — and a clear view on when each is the wrong tool
- Product taste: you talk to users, find the real problem, ship something small, and iterate
- Experience working with messy real-world data (CRMs, email, calendars, third-party data providers)
More about this role
Unusual Ventures is an early-stage venture firm that partners with exceptional enterprise software founders from pre-seed through Series B. We work hands-on with founders on go-to-market, customer discovery, and recruiting, with one goal: helping companies find product-market fit.
We want AI built into how we source, evaluate, support, and run the firm — not bolted on.
We're hiring our first AI Engineer to build the internal systems that can help our small team operate with scalable leverage. You'll work across the firm — investing, talent, platform, founder services, finance and operations — finding the highest-leverage problems, then designing, building, and shipping tools people use every day.
You'll be our first engineer. That means real ownership and a lot of trust, and it also means you'll set the technical standards, choose the stack, and decide what's worth building.
This is a builder role. We care more about solving the underlying problem well than wiring together the newest APIs. You'll have real ownership, direct access to partners and operators, and a short path from idea to production.
From time to time you'll also work directly with portfolio companies: helping...
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