Applied AI Engineer

About Sol

Sol is building an AI-native HR foundation for the way work is evolving. Instead of layering AI onto a legacy HRIS, the company is rethinking the system from the ground up so HR leaders can understand their workforce clearly and operate without working around the software.

The company was started by people with deep experience in shaping the modern HR software category and is supported by Sutter Hill Ventures and NEA. Its first customer deployments are expected in early 2027, and the team is looking for someone who can help ensure those customers succeed.

The Role

As an Applied AI Engineer, you will be responsible for the reliability and quality of Sol’s AI capabilities. This includes the systems that convert enterprise HR content and workforce data into answers and actions that are accurate, explainable, and dependable.

This is a hands-on applied AI role where the challenge is not simply building a model, but making it trustworthy, auditable, and correct when operating on real enterprise data.

What You'll Do

• Develop AI systems that operate across complex enterprise content and workforce data.
• Create evaluation frameworks that measure whether AI features perform correctly both before launch and after release.
• Make practical decisions about what to build, buy, or reuse across the AI stack, including embeddings, classifiers, foundation models, and structured pipelines, and know when a large language model is not the right choice.
• Design systems with explainability and auditability built in from the start, especially for customers working under regulations such as the EU AI Act and NYC Local Law 144.
• Collaborate closely with the founding team to help define the AI layer of the HR system.

What We're Looking For

• Experience building production AI systems from scratch, not simply using existing platforms or demos, and comfort with the outcomes of those infrastructure choices.
• A strong mindset around failure scenarios, including model errors and unexpected issues in connected systems.
• A view that privacy, compliance, and explainability are essential product requirements rather than secondary concerns.
• Comfort working beyond managed tools and notebooks, with enough depth to understand how the underlying infrastructure works because you have built similar capabilities yourself.
• Regular use of AI tools in your own development process, along with thoughtful opinions about using them effectively.
• Interest in joining an early-stage startup environment with a small team, broad ownership, fast iteration, and a clean codebase.

Why This Role Matters Now

The AI layer for this product is being designed now rather than added later. Joining at this stage means you can help define the architecture, the standards for evaluation, and what counts as correctness. The work is especially meaningful because getting AI right in this category has real impact on people’s livelihoods.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Sol is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. The company is committed to an inclusive workplace and to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.