Applied AI Engineer - Thorin

Overview

Title
:
Applied AI Engineer

Location
:
San Francisco
Company
:
Thorin
Stage
:
Seed | Incubated at 8VC

Thorin is an applied AI company born out of 8VC’s Build program, focused on redefining how work gets done inside modern organizations. We build proactive, long-horizon AI agents that continuously observe work across Slack, email, meetings, and documents—and take action so nothing falls through the cracks.

Unlike traditional AI tools that wait for prompts or rely on structured systems, Thorin creates a real-time digital twin of how a business actually operates, enabling automation, coordination, and insight over months and years. Backed by 8VC and built with product vision from Joe Lonsdale, Thorin is building foundational infrastructure for agentic, AI-powered productivity.

With backing and product vision from Joe Lonsdale, Thorin is 8VC’s latest incubation, following the success of Affinity, Addepar, Saronic, and other unicorns.

We’re looking for a Software Engineer (Applied AI Engineer) to build the foundation of Thorin’s user-facing product. This role is ideal for full-stack generalists who love to ship, own features end-to-end, and bring product ideas to life with speed and polish.

You’ll work across the stack — building frontend interfaces, backend logic, and everything in between.

This role is high-ownership and high-agency.

• Build and ship core product features from concept to production
• Own frontend and backend logic across key workflows
• Set quality and velocity benchmarks for a high-performance engineering team
• Help shape product direction through close feedback loops with users and stakeholders
• Move quickly and thoughtfully in a zero-to-one environment

• Full-stack experience shipping production-grade SaaS or AI-native applications
• Strong product intuition — you care about the user and sweat the details
• Proven ability to work across the stack: frontend frameworks (React), backend systems (Bun, Type Script), and APIs
• Comfortable with ambiguity, fast iteration, and early-stage startup dynamics
• Passionate about building software that’s useful, fast, and delightful
• Bonus:
  Experience integrating LLMs or building AI-driven workflows

• Work closely with a small, highly driven founding team, design partners, and directly with Joe Lonsdale, who remains deeply involved in product vision, strategy, and hiring
• Operate with high agency, rapid iteration, and direct customer exposure from day one
• Help define how a category-defining AI company goes to market from first principles
• Build with the backing of one of the strongest early-stage venture platforms in the industry