Astera Holdings
Head of AI Engineering @ Astera Holdings
Location:
Remote (Preference for New York)
Reports to:
CEO
About Astera Holdings Astera Holdings is a quantitative finance firm on a mission to build the "Renaissance Technologies of prediction markets." We are transforming this emerging category—where traders bet on real-world event outcomes—from a speculative frontier into a rigorous, scientific asset class. We are looking for a rare breed of builder to co-author this new chapter in quantitative finance.
Our three pillars
Astera Capital:
Our institutional asset management arm, designed to generate absolute, uncorrelated returns by systematically exploiting market inefficiencies.
Atlas:
Our consumer-facing Agentic / Information / Alpha-as-a-Service application, which makes smart trading in prediction markets accessible.
Astera Analytics:
Our premier B2B consulting partner, which deploys our core intelligence to solve complex enterprise challenges.
Our culture is a
"Meritocracy of Minds,"
defined by Radical Intellectual Honesty, a Scientific Approach to Everything, and Lean Intensity.
The Opportunity This is a career-defining opportunity for a world-class AI leader to build the central nervous system of a new financial institution. We are not hiring a manager for a research lab; we are seeking a strategic and technical partner to build the high-torque engine that powers our entire company. As the Head of AI Engineering, you are the ultimate owner of the firm's most durable competitive advantage: our proprietary, data-compounding Intelligence Engine.
If you are an AI/ML leader from a top-tier quantitative firm or technology company who is driven to build mission-critical systems from a clean slate, this role offers an unparalleled greenfield opportunity. You will be responsible for translating the firm's ambitious vision into a high-velocity, production-grade reality, with the autonomy and resources to architect the future of our technology.
What You'll Build: The Central Intelligence Engine As the Head of AI Engineering, you will architect, build, and lead the world-class team that powers the Astera Flywheel. Your mandate is to own the entire AI ecosystem, ensuring it is scalable, reliable, and capable of generating compounding alpha.
Technical Strategy & Architecture:
You will own the end-to-end technical vision for the entire AI platform, from data ingestion and MLOps to model serving and sophisticated agentic applications. You will make the critical "build vs. buy vs. open-source" decisions that balance speed, cost, and long-term defensibility.
Team Leadership & Talent Development:
You will recruit, hire, mentor, and retain a "lean-elite" team of T-shaped engineers and researchers. This involves designing a rigorous hiring process to find "unicorn" talent and fostering a culture of continuous learning and excellence.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution:
You will serve as the primary technical partner to the C-suite, managing the critical "outer loops" of collaboration with the CIO of Astera Capital and the CPO of BetSmart. You will expertly translate complex quant strategies and dynamic product needs into a single, cohesive technical roadmap and drive the team's execution tempo to meet ambitious milestones.
The AI Platform:
You will be ultimately accountable for the team's delivery of all core AI systems, including:
The predictive models and backtesting engine for Astera Capital's quantitative strategies.
The low-latency execution platform required for HFT and automated trading.
The sophisticated conversational AI agent ("Sharpe") and recommendation engine for BetSmart.
The robust MLOps platform that underpins the entire AI development lifecycle.
Who You Are: The Visionary Builder
An Architect from a Premier AI Environment:
You have led teams and architected systems at a world-class AI-native company (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Cursor) or a top-tier quantitative firm. You have been at the forefront of building foundational models, agentic systems, or sophisticated AI products and are now seeking the ultimate greenfield challenge: applying your expertise to a new, data-rich domain.
A Proven AI Leader:
You have a minimum of 10 years of experience in software and AI engineering, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership capacity managing high-performance technical teams. You have a career-defining track record of architecting and delivering complex, scalable, and mission-critical AI systems in a production environment.
An MLOps & Systems Expert:
You possess deep, hands-on expertise in the modern MLOps stack (CI/CD for ML, model versioning, monitoring, governance) and cloud architecture, ideally on AWS. You have a history of making pragmatic and successful architectural decisions.
A Strategic & Business-Minded Partner:
You have exceptional communication skills and business acumen. You can articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and hold your own in strategic discussions with PhD-level quants and seasoned product leaders.
A Quant-Fluent Technologist:
While direct finance experience is a plus, your core strength is your first-principles approach to solving complex problems with AI. You are excited by the challenge of learning a new domain and are fluent in the language of data, risk, and probability, which are universal to both AI and quantitative finance.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
Remote (Preference for New York)
Reports to:
CEO
About Astera Holdings Astera Holdings is a quantitative finance firm on a mission to build the "Renaissance Technologies of prediction markets." We are transforming this emerging category—where traders bet on real-world event outcomes—from a speculative frontier into a rigorous, scientific asset class. We are looking for a rare breed of builder to co-author this new chapter in quantitative finance.
Our three pillars
Astera Capital:
Our institutional asset management arm, designed to generate absolute, uncorrelated returns by systematically exploiting market inefficiencies.
Atlas:
Our consumer-facing Agentic / Information / Alpha-as-a-Service application, which makes smart trading in prediction markets accessible.
Astera Analytics:
Our premier B2B consulting partner, which deploys our core intelligence to solve complex enterprise challenges.
Our culture is a
"Meritocracy of Minds,"
defined by Radical Intellectual Honesty, a Scientific Approach to Everything, and Lean Intensity.
The Opportunity This is a career-defining opportunity for a world-class AI leader to build the central nervous system of a new financial institution. We are not hiring a manager for a research lab; we are seeking a strategic and technical partner to build the high-torque engine that powers our entire company. As the Head of AI Engineering, you are the ultimate owner of the firm's most durable competitive advantage: our proprietary, data-compounding Intelligence Engine.
If you are an AI/ML leader from a top-tier quantitative firm or technology company who is driven to build mission-critical systems from a clean slate, this role offers an unparalleled greenfield opportunity. You will be responsible for translating the firm's ambitious vision into a high-velocity, production-grade reality, with the autonomy and resources to architect the future of our technology.
What You'll Build: The Central Intelligence Engine As the Head of AI Engineering, you will architect, build, and lead the world-class team that powers the Astera Flywheel. Your mandate is to own the entire AI ecosystem, ensuring it is scalable, reliable, and capable of generating compounding alpha.
Technical Strategy & Architecture:
You will own the end-to-end technical vision for the entire AI platform, from data ingestion and MLOps to model serving and sophisticated agentic applications. You will make the critical "build vs. buy vs. open-source" decisions that balance speed, cost, and long-term defensibility.
Team Leadership & Talent Development:
You will recruit, hire, mentor, and retain a "lean-elite" team of T-shaped engineers and researchers. This involves designing a rigorous hiring process to find "unicorn" talent and fostering a culture of continuous learning and excellence.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution:
You will serve as the primary technical partner to the C-suite, managing the critical "outer loops" of collaboration with the CIO of Astera Capital and the CPO of BetSmart. You will expertly translate complex quant strategies and dynamic product needs into a single, cohesive technical roadmap and drive the team's execution tempo to meet ambitious milestones.
The AI Platform:
You will be ultimately accountable for the team's delivery of all core AI systems, including:
The predictive models and backtesting engine for Astera Capital's quantitative strategies.
The low-latency execution platform required for HFT and automated trading.
The sophisticated conversational AI agent ("Sharpe") and recommendation engine for BetSmart.
The robust MLOps platform that underpins the entire AI development lifecycle.
Who You Are: The Visionary Builder
An Architect from a Premier AI Environment:
You have led teams and architected systems at a world-class AI-native company (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Cursor) or a top-tier quantitative firm. You have been at the forefront of building foundational models, agentic systems, or sophisticated AI products and are now seeking the ultimate greenfield challenge: applying your expertise to a new, data-rich domain.
A Proven AI Leader:
You have a minimum of 10 years of experience in software and AI engineering, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership capacity managing high-performance technical teams. You have a career-defining track record of architecting and delivering complex, scalable, and mission-critical AI systems in a production environment.
An MLOps & Systems Expert:
You possess deep, hands-on expertise in the modern MLOps stack (CI/CD for ML, model versioning, monitoring, governance) and cloud architecture, ideally on AWS. You have a history of making pragmatic and successful architectural decisions.
A Strategic & Business-Minded Partner:
You have exceptional communication skills and business acumen. You can articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and hold your own in strategic discussions with PhD-level quants and seasoned product leaders.
A Quant-Fluent Technologist:
While direct finance experience is a plus, your core strength is your first-principles approach to solving complex problems with AI. You are excited by the challenge of learning a new domain and are fluent in the language of data, risk, and probability, which are universal to both AI and quantitative finance.
#J-18808-Ljbffr