What Artisan Is
We're building AI employees. Not chatbots. Not copilots. Autonomous digital workers that do real jobs.
Our first, Ava, is an AI BDR used by hundreds of companies. She researches leads, writes and sends emails in a customer's voice, runs multi-step outbound sequences, manages her own deliverability infrastructure, self-optimizes over time, and handles objections and meeting booking. She's not a tool someone uses. She's a teammate.
We're a YC W24 company, have raised $35M+ from investors including Y Combinator, and are at $8M+ ARR. Right now we're building Ava 2.0, a step change in what an AI employee can do. The engineering problems are hard and the surface area is enormous.
The Role
You'll be the first Data Engineer at Artisan. This is a foundational hire.
We manage a database of hundreds of millions of leads and generate real-time intent signals by monitoring data fields across that entire universe. The data layer is core to everything we do: it feeds the AI, powers the product, and determines how well Ava performs for every customer. You'll own all of it.
What that looks like concretely:
- Data pipelines at scale. Design, build, and maintain the pipelines that process and transform massive volumes of structured and unstructured data. Ingestion from third-party APIs, internal systems, and customer datasets all runs through infrastructure you'll own.
- ML-ready data systems. Work directly with ML engineers to build and maintain feature stores, embeddings pipelines, evaluation datasets, and model-ready data. The quality of Ava's intelligence starts with the quality of your data layer.
- Data modeling and storage architecture. Design schemas, storage systems, and data models optimized for both ML workloads and product performance. You'll make early architecture decisions that the company builds on for years.
- Quality, observability, and governance. Implement data validation, monitoring, and quality frameworks from the ground up. Build the tooling that gives the entire engineering team access to clean, well-structured, trustworthy data.
- Cost and performance optimization. We operate at a scale where pipeline efficiency matters. You'll balance throughput, latency, cost, and reliability across systems that are growing fast.
This is a staff-level role. You'll shape how Artisan thinks about data infrastructure, not just execute on it.
Who You Are
- 6+ years of experience as a Data Engineer, with a track record of owning data systems end to end
- Deep proficiency in Python, SQL, and modern data tooling (dbt, Airflow, Dagster, or equivalent)
- Strong experience designing and operating production ETL/ELT pipelines
- Fluent in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and comfortable making infrastructure decisions
- Experience with data lakes, warehouses, and vector databases
- Skilled at integrating APIs and working with semi-structured data (JSON, logs, event streams)
- Strong data modeling instincts and a bias toward systems that scale
- Comfortable in fast, ambiguous environments where you define the roadmap as much as execute it
- Bonus: experience supporting LLMs, embeddings, or ML training pipelines
- Bonus: prior startup experience
Why This Role
You're not joining a data team. You're building one. This is the first data engineering hire at a company where data is the product. The architecture you design will be the foundation everything else runs on.
The scale is real and growing. Hundreds of millions of records, real-time signal generation, AI agents making autonomous decisions on your data. This isn't a reporting role.
You'll work at the intersection of data and AI. The systems you build directly determine how well Ava performs. Your pipelines feed models that write emails, research companies, and make decisions on behalf of customers.
Competitive salary + meaningful equity. We compensate for impact.
Details
- Location: San Francisco, New York, or Remote (US)
- Team: Engineering
- Reports to: Sam Stallings, CPTO
Interview Process
- Introductory chat with our recruiter
- 45-minute technical interview with an engineer
- Second 45-minute technical interview with an engineer
- 30-minute interview with Sam, our CPTO
- 30-minute culture and values interview with Jaspar, our CEO
Our Culture and Values
- Founder mindset. Everyone acts like an owner: take initiative, think big, challenge ideas, and push for 10x outcomes.
- Obsessed with impact. We apply the 80/20 rule, kill sunk costs quickly, and focus on what actually moves the needle.
- Customer-first, always. Every decision starts with the customer experience.
- High standards, every detail. Quality matters in everything we ship, from product and code to copy and design.
- Clear, direct communication. We value candor, fast responses, and real feedback.
- Winning team energy. Positive vibes, low ego, zero drama. We genuinely enjoy building together.
