Head of Engineering

About Poesis

Poesis is the AI-native investment manager pioneering a new foundation model for investing in U.S. equities. We’re building modular AI systems to predict market movements and outperform legacy managers. This is frontier research with immediate real-world validation. Your work will directly shape investment decisions and portfolio performance.

Location & Workstyle

San Francisco Bay Area (near Stanford). Hybrid : several days on-site per week. Relocation available.

About The Role

Poesis is building an ML-driven hedge fund focused on reshaping how trading decisions are made. We’re hiring our Founding Head of Engineering, the first engineering hire who will define our architecture, build the initial system, and act as both IC and product owner. You’ll work directly with the CEO, CFO, and Chief Scientist to create the technical backbone of our fund.

You’ll design and ship the first demo‑able workflows, integrate with financial data providers, build reproducible pipelines, and create a thin UI layer that makes outputs usable for decision‑makers and investors. Over time, you’ll help recruit engineers and data scientists as the company grows.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and development of Poesis’ first engineering systems: data ingestion, model/optimizer orchestration, and productization.
• Act as product manager: define workflows, release criteria, and usability standards in collaboration with leadership.
• Build reproducible pipelines and lightweight interfaces (CLI, dashboards, GUIs) for internal users and investor demos.
• Integrate various professional financial data providers (e.g., CapIQ, Bloomberg, FactSet, Refinitiv).
• Establish team practices: sprint cadence, release process, versioning, and documentation.
• Mentor and coordinate future hires.

Required Competencies

• 6–10+ years of software engineering experience, including senior/staff IC roles.
• Experience building data-intensive or quant systems from scratch.
• Strong systems design and API/interface definition skills.
• Fluency in Python and modern data tooling (pandas/numpy, SQL, orchestration frameworks).
• Track record of productizing research or analytics into usable tools (dashboards, GUIs, or internal products).
• Comfortable building robust systems that can execute real world trades with extremely high accuracy.
• Comfortable working directly with executives and acting as de‑facto PM.
• Willingness to work in-person in the Bay Area; relocation support available.

Preferred Competencies

• Prior experience with professional financial data providers (CapIQ, Bloomberg, FactSet, Refinitiv).
• Familiarity with quantamental investing, portfolio optimization, or financial ML.
• Exposure to ML ops practices (feature stores, model registries, evaluation frameworks).
• Basic experience with LLM/RAG tooling for document processing (filings, transcripts).
• Basic understanding of trading and financial markets.

Profile

• You’re a founder‑type engineer: comfortable owning undefined problems and building systems from zero.
• You can think like both an engineer and a PM: defining requirements, prioritizing, and shipping.
• You thrive in small teams with high autonomy and close collaboration.
• You’re pragmatic: quick to deliver something useful, then iterate.
• You want to build the technical backbone of a hedge fund from day one.

Current legal authorization to work in the US required; visa sponsorship considered later for full‑time employees.