# Head of AI at Primary

> Hybrid · United States · Director+ · Other · open. Source: https://alderhq.app/jobs/ashby%3Aprimary%3A16a28fa5-c89d-423c-8a13-37b30753df7c (read 2026-11-07).

## Facts (observed)

- Company: [Primary](https://alderhq.app/companies/primary)
- Location text: New York, NY
- Where it can be done from (inferred): Hybrid · United States (evidence: "Location: New York, NY")
- Posted: 2026-08-12 (86 days ago)
- First seen by alder: 2026-11-02 · last verified: 2026-11-04
- Reposted: 0 times · edited: 0 times
- Apply on the employer's site: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/primary/16a28fa5-c89d-423c-8a13-37b30753df7c
- Skills listed (inferred): LLMs

## Pay and sponsorship

- Posted pay: $300k–$400k per year (from the listing's pay field)
- Market band for similar posted roles (New York, n 841): p25 $165k, median $205k, p75 $250k
- H-1B filings at this company for similar roles, FY26: 2 ([US DOL OFLC LCA disclosure data](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/performance))
- Licensed UK sponsor: registered as "Primary Group (UK) Limited" (checked 2026-11-03, [register](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers))

## Description (the employer's text)

### About Primary

Primary is a seed-stage venture capital firm dedicated to delivering exceptional support to the founders of transformational businesses. By pairing meaningful investment resources with the largest portfolio impact team of any seed investor, our portfolio companies have reached an industry-best seed-to-A graduation rate.

### About the Role

We believe the next durable advantage in venture will not come from access to the same models and tools available to everyone. It will come from the intelligence created through our relationships: what a customer says, the reference on a candidate, the pattern a partner recognizes across dozens of operator conversations. Today, too much of that signal disappears after a call or remains trapped in disconnected systems. We are building the AI-native operating system that allows it to compound.

We are hiring a Head of AI to help build that operating system and, in the process, help shape how Primary operates for the next decade. This isn't a "make things a little more efficient" mandate: AI already touches how we source, diligence, win deals, and how we support our portfolio companies. This hire is about turning an effort that is already well underway into a durable, firm-wide advantage.

The right person will be part engineering leader, part product thinker, and part entrepreneur - working closely with Brian, Ben, Brad, and leaders across the firm to shape the strategy together. You'll sit at the epicenter of how Primary uses AI to compete at the highest level of venture, with a mandate to generate real alpha - better deals sourced, won, and supported, and stronger outcomes across our portfolio.

### What You'll Do

Set vision and strategy with firm leadership. Work closely with senior leaders and teams across investing, portfolio impact, and firm operations to identify the highest-leverage opportunities of AI. Translate that shared direction into a focused, evolving plan tied to firm outcomes.

Own the roadmap and the results: Build and maintain a clear roadmap for Primary's AI product surface, track progress against it visibly, and prioritize ruthlessly. Define the metrics that matter for AI's impact on firm outcomes and hold the team accountable to them.

Build the platform foundations: Lead the development of the shared context and data layer that systematically captures the information the firm creates and makes it safely accessible to AI. Establish the common infrastructure, evaluation methods, and technical primitives that allow AI products to be trustworthy and reusable across Primary.

Go deep on AI, and build when it matters: Stay fluent in LLMs, agents, context/retrieval layers, evals, and the broader model landscape. Evaluate tradeoffs across approaches, lead engineers credibly, and get hands-on with prototypes or production work when necessary.

Turn workflows into products: Develop a detailed understanding of how investors and operators actually work. Find the real problem beneath the request, move quickly from observation to prototype, and ship products that earn adoption because they materially improve decisions and outcomes.

Enable others to build: Create the tools, standards, and support that allow people closest to the work to build their own agents on top of shared foundations. Help the best ideas become reliable, discoverable, and useful to the broader firm.

Drive cross-functional cohesion: Partner across investing, portfolio impact, and operations teams to understand workflows and drive firm-wide integration of AI. Connect work happening across the firm, reduce duplication, and make tradeoffs and ownership clear.

Lead the team: Direct the day-to-day work of engineers, analysts, and other contributors; recruit additional talent as needed; and create a culture of technical excellence, speed, accountability, and high judgment.

Communicate clearly: Make the strategy, roadmap, technical choices, risks, and results legible to both non-technical partners and engineers, in writing and in person.

### About You

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Data: alder (https://alderhq.app). Cite https://alderhq.app/jobs/ashby%3Aprimary%3A16a28fa5-c89d-423c-8a13-37b30753df7c and the date you read it. Observed facts come from the employer's own listing; location reach, level, family and skills are inferences.
