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Firsthand · 23 hours ago

Applied Research - Team Lead

New York

Full-time

Hybrid

Senior Level

$200K/yr - $260K/yr

5+ years exp

Firsthand is an innovative company that has developed an AI-powered Brand Agent platform to enhance consumer engagement. The role involves leading a team of applied researchers to develop and deploy AI agents while collaborating with engineering and product teams to integrate AI capabilities into their offerings.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Information TechnologyMarketing

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Lead the research, development, and deployment of AI agents for our production systems

Collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to integrate AI capabilities into the product experience

Drive the full life-cycle of AI systems from conception through deployment, including building robust evaluation frameworks to measure and improve agent performance

Stay at the forefront of AI by exploring the latest advancements in agents, evals, and applied AI research

Provide strategic direction and mentorship while contributing directly to prototyping, building, and iterating on AI systems

Qualification

AI leadershipPythonAI frameworksDeep learningReinforcement learningAI systems deploymentAdvertising experienceMarketing experienceCommunicationCross-functional collaboration

Required

5+ years of professional experience in AI, with leadership experience

Deep understanding of software engineering principles and proficiency in Python, AI frameworks, and modern tooling for agents and evals

Hands-on builder who takes ownership and drives projects to completion

Extensive experience shipping AI systems in production, particularly agents and LLM-powered applications

Strong communicator who works well cross-functionally with engineering and product teams

Preferred

Experience with deep learning and reinforcement learning is a plus

Advertising or marketing-related experience is a strong plus

Company

Firsthand

Firsthand operates as an AI agent platform built for brands & publishers.

Founded in 2023

New York, New York, USA

11-50 employees

https://www.firsthand.ai/

H1B Sponsorship

Firsthand has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2025 (8)

2024 (1)

Funding

Current Stage

Early Stage

Total Funding

$32.6M

Key Investors

Radical Ventures

2025-03-04Series A· $26M

2024-02-21Seed· $6.6M

Leadership Team

Wei Wei

Co-founder and CTO

Sara Wallace

Head of Product

Recent News

Marketing Dive

Horizon introduces open ad tech partnership network

2025-12-24

Firsthand raises $26M for brand agents

2025-03-07

Tech in Asia

AI brand agent platform Firsthand nets $26m series A

2025-03-07

Company data provided by crunchbase