Hortus AI is an early-stage startup building an online marketplace to function as a Consumer Reports for AI, ranking over 2000 tools on hundreds of public interest use cases. Trellis entered open beta this fall in partnership with the GovAI Coalition, a base of 800+ local, state, and federal agencies united in the mission to promote responsible and purposeful AI in the public sector.
We are recruiting for a software engineer to support development of the marketplace as we prepare for our public launch. The main responsibilities will be to create and maintain data infrastructure as well as application hosting that builds on our open beta. This work will operate closely in tandem with our GitHub repository. The successful candidate(s) may also propose novel projects to support this work and develop our product roadmap, including: AI risk assessment, algorithmic audits, model transparency & disclosure.
Training
You will be onboarded by Hortus staff in the following: Django, Scrum, Jira, and Figma.
Supervision
You will work directly with the CEO, Thomas Krendl Gilbert, who designed and completed one of the world’s first interdisciplinary PhDs in Machine Ethics at UC Berkeley. Gilbert has led collaborations and partnerships with the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI, the City of Boston, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Dr. Gilbert will work with you up to five days a week, offering professional mentoring, research opportunities, and direct experience working with software frameworks used in Hortus applications.
Learning Outcomes
Successful applicants will end their internships with experience preparing them for a full-time industry role. We will work with students to secure academic credits on request. Anticipated workload is 20 hours/week for up to 4 months, with the possibility of extension based on performance. Email Thomas Gilbert ([email protected]) with a resume and brief statement of interest.
Anticipated start date: January 2026.
Requirements:
- 2 years of software engineering experience, including Python
- Excellent written communication
- Ability to work out of our Oakland, CA office.
What We Do
We have built a marketplace matching over 2000 AI tools on 750+ use cases that serve the public interest: housing, finance, HR, education, healthcare, transportation, and criminal justice.
Why Work With Us
Hortus is one of the few AI companies working to change the incentives that define what and how AI tools get built by putting them in the public interest.
