About Us

K2 Venture Partners is a hands-on software development studio specializing in AI-first problem solving and zero-to-one product development, founded by serial entrepreneurs who've built dozens of products and sold multiple companies. We partner with early-stage companies to transform bold ideas into market-ready products, with a core focus on achieving product-market fit through rapid, traction-centric development.

The Role

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer who's ready to work at the bleeding edge of AI, both building intelligent systems and creating AI-native tooling to build them. You'll be a technical leader on a small, elite team where your decisions shape products from day one. You'll architect AI-powered systems that solve real problems, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of how software gets built. We expect you to be fluent in modern AI development tools (Claude, Codex, Cursor, and whatever comes next) and constantly experimenting with new ways to amplify your output. As a full-stack generalist with deep backend expertise, you'll own entire features end-to-end: from designing scalable APIs and data architectures to implementing sophisticated AI/RAG pipelines to polishing React interfaces. You'll work alongside our product team and directly with product owners, translating ambitious visions into elegant technical solutions and making the architecture calls that set products up for long-term success.

What You'll Do

• Architect AI-native systems: Design and build intelligent applications powered by LLMs, RAG architectures, vector databases, and cutting-edge AI capabilities
• Lead technical decisions: Make critical calls on frameworks, infrastructure, and architecture patterns that shape product trajectories. You'll be a key technical voice in product decisions.
• Build at AI-augmented speed: Leverage K2's proprietary system, Meridian, as well as AI coding assistants, automated testing tools, and generative AI workflows to ship production-quality code faster than traditional approaches allow
• Own the full stack: Design scalable backend systems (APIs, databases, microservices) while maintaining the flexibility to deliver polished frontend experiences
• Drive AI tooling innovation: Experiment with and advocate for new AI-powered development tools; help define how our team builds software
• Mentor and elevate: Share knowledge across the team, conduct code reviews, and help establish engineering best practices
• Ship relentlessly: Write clean, maintainable code with comprehensive testing that enables rapid iteration without sacrificing quality

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of professional software development experience shipping production systems at scale
• Deep backend expertise: You've designed and built robust APIs, scalable databases, and complex business logic. Proficient in Python (Django/FastAPI), Node.js, Go, or similar
• Strong AI/ML intuition: Hands-on experience building with LLMs, implementing RAG systems, or integrating AI capabilities into production applications
• Solid computer science fundamentals: Data structures, algorithms, system design. You can reason through complex technical problems and design elegant solutions
• AI-native development mindset: You actively use AI coding assistants (Claude, Codex, Cursor, and whatever comes next) and are excited about pushing the boundaries of AI-augmented development
• Full-stack capability: Comfortable building responsive interfaces in React/TypeScript when needed
• Architectural thinking: Experience making technology decisions that balance immediate needs with long-term scalability
• Product sensibility: You care about user outcomes, not just technical implementation
• Excellent communication: Ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and collaborate effectively with founders

Nice to Haves

• Experience with AI infrastructure: vector databases (Pinecone, pgvector), embedding models, prompt engineering, fine-tuning
• Production LLM experience: agentic workflows, monitoring, evaluation, guardrails, tuning, cost optimization (Langfuse, Langsmith, etc.)
• Track record of building developer tools or internal platforms
• Experience with mobile development (React Native, Flutter)
• DevOps expertise: CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code (Docker, GitHub Actions, Terraform)
• Prior startup or agency experience; you thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments

Logistics & Perks

• Location: Westlake, OH. Hybrid schedule (4 days/week in office)
• Compensation: $130,000-$150,000 base salary + participation in profit sharing program
• Work on the frontier: Build with cutting-edge AI across diverse, high-impact products
• Direct mentorship: Learn from successful serial entrepreneurs who've built and sold companies
• Small, high-impact team: Your decisions directly shape product outcomes
• Flexible PTO and comprehensive health benefits