---
title: 'Applied AI Researcher, System Self-Construction at Distyl AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ai-researcher-system-self-construction-distyl-ai-san-francisco-0zckn6fp6cpe'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-07'
---

# Applied AI Researcher, System Self-Construction at Distyl AI

- **Company:** Distyl AI
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2025-10-16
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/distyl/f907031f-c88f-45e3-8ae4-17c88a3858ab

## Job description

## ABOUT DISTYL AI

Distyl is an applied AI technology company partnering with the world’s most ambitious institutions to rearchitect critical operations for the frontier of AI. Our customers include the largest companies in telecom, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, consumer goods, and global social organizations.

We research and deploy technologies that power AI-native operations — both for our partners and for Distyl itself. Our work spans research into self-constructing systems, the development of the most reliable execution of AI systems, and products that transform mission-critical workflows. As a result, Distyl's technologies affect some of the world's largest operations — from hundreds of millions of consumer interactions to tens of millions of supply chain transactions and millions of patient journeys.

Distyl is backed by leading investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, DST Global, and the board-members of 20+ F500s.

## WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

At Distyl we’re pushing the envelope of AI utilization in enterprise. This requires creative researchers who don’t just want to drive incremental improvements on benchmarks or optimize an existing process but instead are looking to creatively redefine how software is used.

Our researchers come from many academic backgrounds but have strong research track records, operate in an AI-native way, and would be bored staying on the rails of a traditional research org.

## KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- The System Self-Construction team builds systems that can build other systems. Researchers design architectures capable of autonomously generating, assembling, and refining sub-systems. This involves developing meta-learning loops, automated pipeline generation, and self-architecting frameworks that reduce the human bottleneck in complex system creation.
- Researchers in Self-Construction study recursive design principles: how systems represent their own construction processes, evaluate them, and evolve. They draw from meta-learning, program synthesis, and evolutionary computation to explore what it means for a system to “understand” and redesign itself. Their work defines the frontier of self-referential, generative system architectures.

## WHO WE ARE

- Experience Building Modular and Composable Systems: You’ve engineered architectures where components interact dynamically (e.g. graph-based planners, agent orchestration frameworks, workflow engines, or automated pipeline builders).
- Experience Building with Models, Not Just Building Models: We develop intelligent systems using models rather than training or fine-tuning them. Ideal candidates have expertise in compound AI systems, agentic collaboration, and associated techniques (ensembling, ReAct, graph-of-thoughts, etc.).
- Proven Track Record of Research Results: Whether you’ve published in top journals, posted amazing work on twitter, or somewhere else we want to see what you've done.
- Uses AI Every Day: Before you can revolutionize someone else’s workflow, you need to revolutionize yours. You should be using tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, and Perplexity to accelerate your workflow.
- Strong Programming and Data Analysis Skills: While you might not consider yourself a software engineer you need to be able to build prototypes of your ideas and then perform the experiments to prove the effectiveness to a F500 Head of AI.
- Biases Towards Showing vs Telling: Our customers want to see the power of AI today vs discuss the most elegant idea that will take 5 years to realize.

## WHAT WE OFFER

- The base salary range for this role is $150K – $250K, depending on experience, location, and level. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for meaningful equity, along with a comprehensive benefits package
- 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
- Flexible time off
- Retirement and financial planning benefits, including access to pre-tax HSA, FSA, and commuter accounts, 401(k), and financial coaching resources
- Comprehensive wellness benefits, including physical fitness, mental well-being, and fertility and family-building benefits through Carrot
- Complimentary in-office lunches and snacks provided
- Access to state-of-the-art AI models, generous usage of modern AI tools, and real-world business problems
- Ownership of high-impact projects across top enterprises
- A mission-driven, fast-moving culture that values curiosity, pragmatism, and excellence

Distyl has offices in San Francisco and New York. This role follows a hybrid collaboration model with 3+ days per week (Tuesday–Thursday) in‑office.

#LI-Hybrid

We believe diverse perspectives make our work stronger and more impactful. We are an equal opportunity employer and evaluate all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

## About Distyl AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Distyl AI partners with world-class institutions to rearchitect their operational systems for abundant intelligence, deploying AI-native workflows at production scale.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Arjun Prakash (Co-Founder, CEO) and Derek Ho (Co-Founder, COO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: AI-Native Operations / Enterprise AI
- **Target Customers**: Large enterprises and institutions in regulated industries (Fortune 500 companies), specifically financial services, healthcare, telecom, insurance, manufacturing, and retail.
- **Mission/Purpose**: To help world institutions rearchitect their systems for abundant intelligence without sacrificing human agency and control.

## Products & Services
- **Distillery (Proprietary Platform)**: An agentic infrastructure platform that curates context from across the enterprise, enabling composable routines, policy-aware execution, and built-in auditability. It integrates with existing enterprise systems to allow for autonomous workflows.
- **Distyl Scans**: A service offering that provides enterprises with an “AI Readiness” score and a roadmap for adopting AI-driven technologies by surveying KPIs, business processes, data landscape, and tech stack.
- **AI-Native Workflows**: Custom, full-stack solutions deployed for specific industries, including intelligent underwriting, claims processing, prior authorization automation, and contact center intelligence.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metrics**:
    - **Total Funding**: $202 million (across 3 rounds: Seed, Series A, Series B).
    - **Annual Revenue**: $1.0 million (per LinkedIn).
    - **Decisions Processed**: Over 1 billion decisions processed annually at production scale.
    - **Deployments**: 50+ enterprise deployments across Fortune 500 companies.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lightspeed Venture Partners (led Series A & B), Khosla Ventures, DST Global, Coatue, Dell Technologies Capital, OpenAI, Microsoft.
- **Growth Signals**:
    - **Massive Headcount Growth**: 117 employees (+101.3% YoY, +77 people) as of recent data.
    - **Latest Funding**: Raised a $175 million Series B in October 2025.
    - **Industry Reach**: Active production deployments across 12 industries.
    - **Talent Pipeline**: Strong hiring from top-tier companies like Palantir, McKinsey, Amazon, and Microsoft.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Outcome Ownership**: Unlike a pure software vendor or consultancy, Distyl takes "Relentless Outcome Ownership," deploying solutions and managing them in production to ensure EBITDA impact within 6 months.
- **Full-Stack AI**: They combine strategy, research, and engineering to build and deploy production-grade systems, not just demos or proofs-of-concept.
- **Built for Regulated Industries**: Their platform is designed with dynamic guardrails and auditability, making them a trusted partner for sectors like healthcare and finance where compliance is non-negotiable.
- **Strong Backing**: Backed by a consortium of top-tier venture capital firms and strategic investors like OpenAI and Microsoft, providing deep resources and credibility.

## Strategic Focus
- **Defining the AI-Native Enterprise**: Distyl is focused on building the systems, workflows, and operational models that will define how large enterprises operate in the age of AI.
- **Agentic Systems at Scale**: Their current priority is deploying agentic systems that are practical, auditable, and safe, moving beyond simple automation to complex decision-making.
- **Industry Expansion**: With deployments in 12 industries, they are aggressively expanding their footprint in financial services, healthcare, and telecom, while also targeting supply chain and insurance.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & Work Style**: Described as fast-paced and outcome-oriented. The company values "relentless curiosity," direct feedback ("no ego-stroking"), and a bias for shipping real solutions. The work is described as defining the future of enterprise AI.
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: For all engineering roles and most other roles, the company requires in-office collaboration **3 days a week** in either San Francisco or New York City. They also have a London office.
- **Benefits & Perks**:
    - **Health & Wellness**: 100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents. 8 weeks of parental leave. Flexible PTO.
    - **Compensation**: Competitive salary and meaningful equity. Retirement plans. Life and disability insurance.
    - **Additional**: Relocation support for moves over 100 miles. Daily meals and snacks in-office. Commuter benefits.
- **Engineering & Research Focus**: The interview process is practical, featuring collaborative live coding and system design discussions, and the use of AI is encouraged during interviews. They hire people who "make AI work better than anyone else."

## Sources
1. [distyl.ai](https://www.distyl.ai/)
2. [distyl.ai - About](https://www.distyl.ai/about)
3. [distyl.ai - Careers](https://www.distyl.ai/careers)
4. [LinkedIn - Distyl AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/distylai)
5. [CB Insights - Distyl](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/distyl-ai)

## Other roles at Distyl AI

- [Executive Operations Associate, Office of the CEO](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-operations-associate-office-of-the-ceo-distyl-ai-san-francisco-hj2xp93s2pef) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Operator, Implementation Delivery (UK)](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-operator-implementation-delivery-uk-distyl-ai-london-e8mgg4gd407b) — London, United Kingdom
- [Organizational Development & Learning Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/organizational-development-learning-lead-distyl-ai-new-york-0az5cwvsdg80) — New York, NY
- [Head of Talent Acquisition](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-talent-acquisition-distyl-ai-san-francisco-3rmyn3we3f3c) — San Francisco, CA
- [Lead AI Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-ai-strategist-distyl-ai-san-francisco-q52mgmpz2qz7) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineers, Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-post-training-distyl-ai-san-francisco-zgw63z6bgdh3) — San Francisco, CA
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- [AI Engineer, Enterprise Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-enterprise-lead-distyl-ai-san-francisco-bfgwqzjz2bvq) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Engineer, Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-lead-distyl-ai-san-francisco-wy97wtfzpd2n) — San Francisco, CA