Applied AI Lead

Applied AI Lead
Reporting to the Chief Innovation Officer, the Applied AI Lead is the building muscle of Madhive's applied adtech innovation factory — turning identified needs into production-quality software at high velocity. This is a senior, startup-style role designed to transform identified needs into functional, production-quality software. As a fungible builder, you will surge across mandates, pairing with leadership to take innovative concepts from initial idea to load-bearing V1 releases. This role ensures the Office remains a dedicated building function rather than a strictly advisory one.

This is a hybrid role, working 3 days a week at Madhive HQ in the Financial District of New York City.

Key Responsibilities
Lead zero-to-one builds, shipping production-quality prototypes in days rather than quarters.
Develop reusable components and architectural patterns that can be leveraged by other leads and receiving teams.
Maintain fungibility across various innovation mandates, addressing the highest weekly priorities with agility.
Ship each V1 to production -- including load-bearing, and revenue-generating AI architecture then hand it off as a new innovation for the next team to build around.

Qualifications & Experience
Senior Builder Profile: 10+ years of experience or a founding/early-engineer background with a proven track record of shipping end-to-end software solo or with small teams.
Zero-to-One Expertise: Demonstrated ability to take projects from a blank page to live users, with the ability to articulate the full loop of discovery, iteration, and customer metric movement (activation, retention, etc.).
Tool Fluency: Broad, full-stack, and AI-native capabilities. Proficient in standing up production prototypes using agentic coding tools, AI coding agents, and eval/observability frameworks.
Operational Style: High technical bar combined with grit in ambiguity. Low-ego and collaborative, with a focus on making surrounding teams better without creating territorial boundaries.
Fresh Perspective: We prioritize innovators from outside the ad-tech category to bring fresh perspectives; prior ad-tech experience is specifically not required.