AE Studio is an LA-based company focused on increasing human agency by making the AGI future go well. We believe alignment is solvable, people just haven’t tried hard enough. For us, that means focusing on neglected ideas that could unlock major breakthroughs.
We’ve spent over a decade helping clients, from startups to companies like Samsung, Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway, and Goodfire, solve complex technical problems and bring ambitious products to life. We apply the same structures to research. Instead of a client, we partner with visionary researchers exploring neglected alignment ideas. We’re a full-stack R&D group combining engineering, science, and product capability. This puts us in a unique position to move quickly and make real progress on one of the most important problems of our time.
We're fully bootstrapped. We don’t rely on venture capital or private equity. Profits from our client work go directly into internal Skunkworks projects, technical research, and policy engagement. This gives us the freedom to pursue high-risk, high-upside ideas that typical funding models neglect. We can commit to long-term bets without being constrained by short grant cycles or investor timelines.
Our alignment efforts include in-house work, alignment clients like Goodfire AI, and collaborations with Redwood Research and researchers at Anthropic and DeepMind. In the past, we also led pioneering research in brain-computer interfaces, and we continue to expand our scope as the stakes rise.
If you care about actually solving alignment and want to build, we want to talk to you!
ABOUT YOU- Experience with ML or alignment research
- You care about AI alignment, and are optimistic in humanity’s capacity to problem solve and safely navigate accelerating AI capabilities and have an awesome future
- Eager to use AI and automate everything you do
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, startup-like environment
- Proven data science experience–primary or equal contributor, multiple smaller projects, management of stake-holders.
- Experience working with / building / training deep learning-based computer vision or NLP models or LLMs
- Lots of experience with Python
- Experience calling AI models’ APIs via REST or client libraries
- Growth mindset. Excited about learning new things and solving difficult problems
- Demonstrated ability to work independently/autonomously
- Track record for breaking down complex problems into manageable chunks for individual or team execution
- Full-time availability–but if you have cool side projects that increase human agency, we totally want you to keep working on it...we’ll even help!
- Ability to communicate effectively and work exclusively in English and communicate complex technical concepts clearly to a non-technical audience
- Experience with self-managed data science projects - show us your cool side hustles, especially if they increase human agency
- Experienced with software engineering best practices/software development background
- Agile experience (worked with Kanban, Scrum, Extreme Programming)
- JavaScript / Node.js experience
- Experience managing clients and client relationships
- Experience in startups
- Being in LA to work in person from our amazing office
Salary range is from $120K to $220K per year for people based in California.
Not in the range? That's fine, you can still apply, and our team may fit you in a more senior position that we're not actively hiring right now, but we are growing fast and may have other openings soon.
EQUITY
Working at AE means receiving equity in our client projects and in Skunkworks ventures. The equity is priced at $0 when granted for tax reasons, but AE invests millions into these projects. Equity comes from reduced margins on client work and internal funding. You get a real stake in the things you help build.
The longer you stay, the more value you create and the more equity you receive. If you leave on good terms, you can retain 20% of your equity by staying engaged. If you spin out a Skunkworks venture, you retain 100%.
Skills Required
- Experience with ML or alignment research
- Proven data science experience-primary or equal contributor, multiple smaller projects
- Lots of experience with Python
- Experience calling AI models' APIs via REST or client libraries
- Ability to communicate effectively in English
What We Do
AE is a software development, data science, and design agency. That part is common. The rest is extraordinary. Founded in 2016, AE has bootstrapped its way to 150+ individuals working to increase human agency through technology. No venture capital. No private equity. No outside shareholders. This allows a longtermist perspective for clients and employees that leads to unparalleled thought-partnership and creativity. Some of the profits from our consulting business are channeled into skunkworks - internal, agency increasing projects we incubate, turning our world-class team into founders themselves. Some are kept, some are sold! Like EletricSMS which we sold for a few million dollars. Profits from these ventures are deployed towards our big-hairy-audacious-goal: the development of a brain computer interface (BCI) operating system that increases agency rather than interruption of our thoughts with ads. Let our agency increase yours.
