Contract
AI Engineer
Makai Labs
1-10 employees
AI-driven process automation that adapts
Compensation Overview
$115k - $130k/yr
California, USA + 4 more
More locations: Texas, USA | New York, NY, USA | Massachusetts, USA | New Jersey, USA
Remote
Must work Eastern Time hours.
 Software Engineering (1) |
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- The candidate should be a senior in college, a recent graduate, or an early-career engineer.
- The candidate should have a background in computer science.
- The candidate should have experience building AI applications through internships, coursework, research, or personal projects.
- The candidate should have experience running AI experiments and iterating quickly.
- The candidate should have strong Python skills.
- The candidate should demonstrate initiative and willingness to learn quickly on the job.
- The candidate should be comfortable with fast iteration and taking action.
- The candidate should be interested in staying current with AI advancements and applying them in practical systems.
- The candidate should want to solve hard problems.
- Build and improve AI-powered applications and internal tools.
- Rapidly prototype, experiment, and iterate across client and internal projects.
- Implement workflows that use large language models, retrieval systems, agents, and structured outputs.
- Contribute to shared platform work and reusable tooling.
- Turn prototypes into reliable, client-ready systems.
- Conduct research, benchmarking, testing, and evaluation of new approaches.
- Own smaller projects or sub-projects with guidance from the team.
- Take ownership of deliverables and help deliver work that meets client needs.
- Write and maintain clear internal documentation.
- Experience with application programming interfaces, backend services, or workflow automation.
- Familiarity with FastAPI, Flask, or similar backend frameworks.
- Familiarity with React and TypeScript.
- Familiarity with Docker and local development environments.
- Familiarity with testing in Python or TypeScript.
- Experience working with retrieval systems, embeddings, or search.
- Experience working with optical character recognition, document processing, or PDF workflows.
- Experience with fine-tuning, benchmarking, or serving large language models.
- Experience in fast-paced, high-accountability team settings.
Makai Labs builds AI-enabled process automation that adapts to people. Its software analyzes how users work, then automates repetitive tasks and decision points to fit individual workflows, delivering a continuous return on investment for organizations of any size. The product combines adaptive AI with automation logic to streamline processes without demanding that people change how they work. Unlike tools that require users to change or learn complex interfaces, Makai’s system molds itself to the user’s needs and routines. Founded by MIT alumni, the company differentiates itself through a user-centric, adaptive approach that aims to produce consistent ROI across varied business contexts. The goal is to reduce manual work, speed up operations, and provide measurable improvements in efficiency over time.
Company Size
1-10
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
New York City, New York
Founded
2021
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- LinkedIn shows active hiring activity and roles still posted in 2025.
- Website refreshed in 2026, signaling continued product and market positioning work.
- Niche human-machine-teaming messaging fits enterprises seeking automation with human approval controls.
What critics are saying
- No public funding, customers, or revenue disclosure limits confidence in traction.
- Fourteen employees cannot support aggressive enterprise delivery if sales accelerate in 2026.
- Open-ended AI-services positioning invites competition from Accenture, UiPath, and boutique consultancies.
What makes Makai Labs unique
- MIT-founded New York team sells adaptive AI and RPA with human oversight.
- HAMNA methodology bundles rules, NLP, computer vision, and multimodal automation.
- Small 14-employee team targets enterprise workflows, not generic AI chatbots.
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Benefits
Remote Work Options
Hybrid Work Options
Paid Vacation
Health Insurance
401(k) Company Match
Professional Development Budget