Head of AI

PLCs.ai is an AI-powered platform transforming industrial automation by analyzing and generating PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) code across multiple vendors. We work with some of the world’s top manufacturers as design partners across multiple sectors including CPG, automotive, and medical devices.

Our platform converts complex PLC code into natural language, removes bottlenecks where single PLC experts become gatekeepers, and enables engineers to query complicated projects through conversational interfaces.

We’ve just closed our seed round and are building the foundational team that will scale this platform. This is a rare opportunity to join at the ground floor of a company solving a massive problem in a $50B industry.

About the Role

We’re looking for a hands-on AI practitioner to lead the development and evolution of our AI capabilities. This is not a research role. We need someone who has shipped production AI systems and can build, deploy, and iterate rapidly. You’ll start as an individual contributor with the mandate to build and lead the AI team as we scale.

You’ll report directly to the CTO and work closely with the VP of R&D and the Head of PLC Experts. In the rapidly evolving AI landscape where breakthroughs happen weekly, you’ll be responsible for keeping us at the cutting edge, evaluating new models, frameworks, and techniques, and implementing what’s relevant to our domain.

You’ll own the entire AI stack: from data preparation and labeling to agent architecture, RAG pipelines, LLM selection for both cloud and local deployment, prompt engineering, and production systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain our multi-agent AI architecture, scaling capabilities across PLC vendors and industry verticals
• Own the end-to-end RAG pipeline: embedding strategies, vector database optimization, context injection, and relevance scoring
• Evaluate and select appropriate LLMs for different tasks, balancing performance, cost, latency, and deployment requirements (cloud and local)
• Develop data pipelines for ingesting, processing, and structuring proprietary PLC code and manufacturing documentation
• Design and implement data labeling, tagging, and annotation workflows for evaluation and quality assurance
• Ensure production-grade reliability with fallback mechanisms, confidence scoring, and monitoring
• Collaborate with PLC domain experts to translate industrial automation knowledge into AI capabilities
• Build and lead the AI team as we scale, including hiring, mentoring, and establishing engineering excellence

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field
• 5 years of hands-on experience building and deploying AI/ML systems in production
• Deep expertise with agents & LLMs : LLMs evaluation, RAG architectures, and agent frameworks
• Strong software engineering skills : you write production-quality code. Proficiency in Python required
• Experience with vector databases and embedding models
• Track record of shipping : you’ve taken AI products from prototype to production
• Self-directed learner who stays current with the rapidly evolving AI landscape
• Startup mentality : comfortable with ambiguity, excited to build from the ground up
• Onsite work: Hoboken, NJ

Nice to Have

• Experience with industrial automation, manufacturing systems, or domain-specific AI
• Background in multi-agent systems, code generation, or structured data extraction
• Prior experience at an early-stage startup
• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in Machine Learning, NLP, or related field

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation :
  Base salary commensurate with experience plus meaningful equity
• Comprehensive benefits :
  Health, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k); flexible PTO
• Professional development :
  Budget for conferences, courses, and certifications
• Growth opportunity :
  Build and lead the AI function from the ground up with direct line to founding team