---
title: 'Lead AI Strategist at Distyl AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-ai-strategist-distyl-ai-san-francisco-q52mgmpz2qz7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Lead AI Strategist at Distyl AI

- **Company:** Distyl AI
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-07-07
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/distyl/ebb7ae85-350a-4a53-81a4-3314c03230bc

## 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

As a Lead AI Strategist, you are the partner our largest customers turn to when they rethink how their business runs on AI. You work alongside CIOs, COOs, and their leadership teams on the technology and business strategy that reshapes how a company operates — and that partnership becomes some of Distyl’s deepest, fastest-growing relationships.

These are companies with hundreds of thousands of employees and problems measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. You learn their business better than almost anyone outside it, bring Distyl’s engineers and researchers to their hardest problems, and own the outcome — as a strategic partner, not a vendor. The relationships you build run into the tens of millions of dollars a year and grow from there. The revenue is the result of trust, not a pitch.

## Key Responsibilities

- Be the strategist in the room. Sit with CIOs, COOs, and their teams on where AI changes their business. Bring a point of view they can’t get from their own staff, and shape the technology and operating strategy — not a product pitch
- Understand the business cold. Learn how the customer makes money and where the friction is. Find the problems worth hundreds of millions to solve, and frame them in their language, not Distyl’s
- Turn strategy into outcomes. Translate executive conversations into real programs, mobilize Distyl’s forward-deployed engineers and researchers, and stay accountable to the metric that has to move
- Grow the relationship. Expand from a first program into a portfolio across business units and budgets. Done well, these become Distyl’s largest relationships — tens of millions a year and climbing
- Earn trust over the long run. Make the call that serves the customer even when it costs Distyl in the short term. That is what keeps a relationship compounding
- Be the connective tissue. Align Distyl’s delivery, product, and research teams behind the commitments you make, and give leadership a clear read — explanations and plans, not excuses

## Who You Are

- A track record as a trusted advisor to senior executives — CIOs, COOs, and their peers — at large enterprises. The person leaders call before they’ve decided what to do
- 10-15+ years of experience in management consulting, an operational/ transformation leadership role within large enterprises, or product leadership role within enterprise technology companies
- Experience in standing up and delivering strategic agendas ($100M+ value impact) with cross-functional executive team - shaping roadmaps, driving scoping and discovery, establishing ROI and value case for funding approvals
- Fluency in both technology and business strategy: you can hold a conversation on architecture and on the P&L, and translate between the two
- Experience turning strategic relationships into large, multi-year programs — and growing them
- Command of complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise dynamics — procurement, security, legal, and competing internal agendas — without ever reading as a salesperson
- AI-native instincts: you use frontier AI tools yourself and can speak credibly about what they change for a business
- The judgment to tell a customer a hard truth, including when not to buy. Serve, don’t sell.
- A history of leading large-scale enterprise programs — transformations with significant budgets ($XXM+) and many moving parts
- You’ve been the person an executive team trusts with their biggest technology-driven bets

## What We Offer

- The base salary range for this role is $200 – $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.

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

- [Recruiting Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiting-coordinator-distyl-ai-new-york-8q61z2gn6mvv) — New York, NY
- [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
- [Head of Talent Acquisition](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-talent-acquisition-distyl-ai-san-francisco-3rmyn3we3f3c) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineers, Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-post-training-distyl-ai-san-francisco-zgw63z6bgdh3) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineers, Agents](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-agents-distyl-ai-san-francisco-s11fsefd83k9) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineers, Data](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineers-data-distyl-ai-san-francisco-9cdmck9tqjda) — San Francisco, CA
- [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
- [AI Engineer, Evaluation](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-evaluation-distyl-ai-san-francisco-8zm2rngncgmx) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-distyl-ai-san-francisco-e7kcw7bt96ty) — San Francisco, CA