AI Engineer

AI Engineer Founding AI Team Reporting Directly to Partner If you want to move fast, ship real things, and have outsized impact at a leading PE firm—keep reading. Position Summary:

• K1 is seeking an AI Engineer to join our founding AI team in Manhattan Beach, CA. This is not a typical role.
• You will be one of the founding members of K1's internal AI function, reporting directly to a Founding Partner with no middle management, no busywork, and real ownership from day one.
• You will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, enterprise software, and private equity operations — shipping real automations, building real tools, and driving real impact across a portfolio of 275+ companies.

The right candidate will embody the values of K1 – Passion, Persistence, Humility, and Excellence. Key Responsibilities:

• Designing, building, and deploying AI-powered automations using Claude, Microsoft 365 (Power Automate, Copilot, SharePoint), and custom integrations to eliminate manual processes across the firm and portfolio companies; Rapidly prototyping AI tools and agents — from competitive intelligence scrapers to board-report generators — and iterating quickly based on real user feedback; Evaluating emerging AI models, tools, and frameworks and synthesizing findings into actionable recommendations for the investment team; Building internal dashboards, data pipelines, and agentic workflows that give K1's investment professionals an unfair advantage; Performing other duties as assigned. Requirements: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Business + CS, or a related field; At least one prior internship/role or substantive project experience in AI/ML, software engineering, or data science; Proficiency with Claude (Anthropic) as a daily working tool — prompt engineering, multi-step workflows, and integration into real tasks; Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 (Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams); familiarity with Power Automate or Copilot Studio is a plus; Proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript — you don't need to be a systems engineer, but you need to be able to ship working code; Bias toward action, comfort with ambiguity, and a genuine obsession with where AI is headed; Ability to work in-office in Manhattan Beach 5 days per week. About K1: K1 Investment Management is one of the largest investors in small-cap AI-powered software.
• Dedicated to transforming lives and industries by building category leaders in technology, K1 has invested in over 275 companies since inception.
• Headquartered in Manhattan Beach, California, the firm partners early with founders and management teams to build AI-powered, mission-critical systems of record for enterprise clients globally. For more information, visit k1.com and follow K1 Investment Management on LinkedIn. Powered by JazzHR