Applied AI Engineer

Heard • Full-time • Seattle, Washington, United States • 1m ago

About Us

Heard is a Series A startup on a mission to become the AI business partner for small health and wellness businesses. Thousands of customers trust us daily to manage their financial and compliance workflows. Our goal is to democratize access to an AI assistant that helps business owners build and grow their businesses while keeping them focused on what they love doing most - helping their client. We believe many of today’s pain points can be solved with creative, applied AI — and we’re looking for a founding Applied AI Engineer to make that vision real. We've raised $26M to date with the support of the best in the market - Founders' Co-op, Footwork, Headline, and Notable Capital.

What You’ll Do

- Rapidly prototype and ship AI-powered features that simplify and eliminate manual workflow
- Work closely with the Seattle based VP of Product to experiment, validate, and iterate on new user experiences
- Build scrappy demos in days, then harden the best ideas into production-ready features
- Apply state-of-the-art AI models (LLMs, embeddings, RAG, agents, etc.) to real-world product problems
- Design lightweight evaluation frameworks for prototype success (accuracy, speed, cost, usability)
- Help shape the culture and foundation of our AI usage at Heard

What We’re Looking For

- Strong engineering fundamentals with fluency in prototyping and building full-stack features (Python/TypeScript/React)
- Applied AI experience using APIs, libraries, and frameworks (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, HuggingFace)
- Product-mindedness: You care about solving real user problems, not just building cool tech
- Bias to action: You thrive in ambiguity, build fast, and aren’t afraid to throw away work
- Startup DNA: Resourceful, collaborative, low-ego, and energized by solving messy problems
- Excited to work in person in Seattle with a small, fast-moving team

What Success Looks Like

- Within 1-2 months: You’ve shipped prototypes that automate manual workflows that are tested with users
- Within 3-6 months: You’ve transitioned successful experiments into production features with measurable impact
- 6-12 months: You’ve helped establish a repeatable process for turning messy workflows into elegant AI-driven experiences.

Bonus Points

- Experience automating workflows in SaaS products
- Familiarity with vector DBs, prompt engineering, and eval frameworks
- History of shipping 0→1 features in a startup environment

Benefits

- Market salary and equity — and flexibility to choose distribution.
- Unlimited PTO
- 401k
- Healthcare and dental
- Mental Wellness Stipend
- Remote Work Stipend

We want you to love the work that you do, the team that you’re working with, the environment that you’re working in. It is often hard to tell from a job description what working at a company is like, but some reasons why Heard may not be a good fit for you:

Our mission of helping therapists does not resonate with youYou prefer highly structured, well-defined environmentsYou’re uncomfortable with ambiguity or “being the first” in figuring something out

Heard is an equal opportunity employer. We aim to build a workforce of individuals from different backgrounds, with different abilities, identities, and mindsets. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications listed above, we encourage you to apply!