Founding AI Systems Architect (AI Alpha) in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Founding AI Systems Architect (AI Alpha)

Two founding positions | AI for Good | Rental Housing

Posted by Viva Benefits on behalf of a stealth nonprofit partner

Location:

Flexible

Initial engagement:
Paid demonstration project with the potential to become a long-term founding role

Compensation:
Performance-based with no predetermined dollar ceiling; details below

The opportunity

We are supporting the recruitment of two exceptional AI-native builders who believe complex industries can be reduced to first principles, and that sufficiently capable agentic systems can perform more than 92% of today’s operational work, with a small number of expert humans providing judgment, oversight, and accountability.

Our initial proving ground is rental housing: an approximately $8 trillion industry supported by fragmented technology, repetitive processes, disconnected stakeholders, and systems that frequently fail the people they are meant to serve.

Our thesis is deliberately ambitious:
Two AI Alphas, working alongside a deeply experienced housing-domain expert and an established network of key industry stakeholders, can begin rewriting the operating system for rental housing.

This is not a small team operating in isolation. It is a highly leveraged founding model combining:

• Two exceptional AI-native builders
• A housing-domain expert who understands the industry’s systems, incentives, relationships, and constraints
• A network of owners, operators, residents, service providers, policymakers, technologists, and other stakeholders who can identify high-value problems, provide real-world context, participate in pilots, and validate results

The organization will operate within a nonprofit framework so that the infrastructure, intelligence, and leverage created through this work remain aligned with broad public benefit.

Your mission

In the broadest sense: help save humanity from the systems humanity has built.

In practical terms, you will design, deploy, and continuously improve an AI-native operating model capable of coordinating work across the rental-housing ecosystem.

You will not be joining a conventional software team or inheriting a predetermined product roadmap. You will help define:

• The problems the organization should solve
• Its agent architecture and technical foundation
• Its operating principles
• Its initial products and services
• Its approach to human oversight
• Its standards for accuracy, reliability, and safety
• Its earned-revenue model
• Its framework for measuring public benefit

Your work will be informed and accelerated by access to people who understand where the housing system breaks, who is affected, and what a successful solution must accomplish.

What you will do

Deconstruct complex housing systems and workflows into first principles.

Build agentic systems that execute complete outcomes—not merely assist with isolated tasks.

Determine where expert human judgment must remain in the loop.

Work with the domain expert to translate industry knowledge into technical requirements and scalable systems.

Engage housing stakeholders to identify and prioritize high-value opportunities.

Rapidly prototype, test, and deploy solutions with participating housing partners.

Establish measurable standards for accuracy, reliability, safety, adoption, and economic value.

Translate demonstrated value into sustainable earned revenue.

Help design an AI-native operating system that can eventually extend beyond housing.

Participate in the mutual selection of the second founding AI Alpha.

Operate as an intellectual, technical, and strategic peer within the founding team.

Your initial demonstration of value

Rather than completing a conventional technical interview, qualified finalists will be invited to propose an initial scope of work demonstrating what they, and the agents they orchestrate, can accomplish.

To support the development of an informed proposal, finalists will have the opportunity to:

• Conduct one or more informational interviews with the housing-domain expert
• Speak with selected members of the organization’s network of housing owners, operators, residents, service providers, policymakers, and other industry stakeholders
• Receive references to relevant…