Viva is a network of affordable housing that offers families a set of benefits, including access to health, education, and financial resources. As one example, Viva offers families access to FREE cash - worth more than $5,000 - to help accelerate the transition to homeownership. We are creating equity for all through housing.

Founding AI Systems Architect (“AI Alpha”)

Two founding positions | AI for Good | Rental Housing

Posted by Viva Benefits on behalf of a stealth nonprofit partner

Location: Flexible

Initial engagement: Paid demonstration project with the potential to become a long-term founding role

Compensation: Performance-based with no predetermined dollar ceiling; details below

The opportunity

We are supporting the recruitment of two exceptional AI-native builders who believe complex industries can be reduced to first principles, and that sufficiently capable agentic systems can perform more than 92% of today’s operational work, with a small number of expert humans providing judgment, oversight, and accountability.

Our initial proving ground is rental housing: an approximately $8 trillion industry supported by fragmented technology, repetitive processes, disconnected stakeholders, and systems that frequently fail the people they are meant to serve.

Our thesis is deliberately ambitious:

Two AI Alphas, working alongside a deeply experienced housing-domain expert and an established network of key industry stakeholders, can begin rewriting the operating system for rental housing.

This is not a small team operating in isolation. It is a highly leveraged founding model combining:

• Two exceptional AI-native builders
• A housing-domain expert who understands the industry’s systems, incentives, relationships, and constraints
• A network of owners, operators, residents, service providers, policymakers, technologists, and other stakeholders who can identify high-value problems, provide real-world context, participate in pilots, and validate results

The organization will operate within a nonprofit framework so that the infrastructure, intelligence, and leverage created through this work remain aligned with broad public benefit.

Your mission

In the broadest sense: help save humanity from the systems humanity has built.

In practical terms, you will design, deploy, and continuously improve an AI-native operating model capable of coordinating work across the rental-housing ecosystem.

You will not be joining a conventional software team or inheriting a predetermined product roadmap. You will help define:

• The problems the organization should solve
• Its agent architecture and technical foundation
• Its operating principles
• Its initial products and services
• Its approach to human oversight
• Its standards for accuracy, reliability, and safety
• Its earned-revenue model
• Its framework for measuring public benefit

Your work will be informed and accelerated by access to people who understand where the housing system breaks, who is affected, and what a successful solution must accomplish.

What you will do

• Deconstruct complex housing systems and workflows into first principles.
• Build agentic systems that execute complete outcomes—not merely assist with isolated tasks.
• Determine where expert human judgment must remain in the loop.
• Work with the domain expert to translate industry knowledge into technical requirements and scalable systems.
• Engage housing stakeholders to identify and prioritize high-value opportunities.
• Rapidly prototype, test, and deploy solutions with participating housing partners.
• Establish measurable standards for accuracy, reliability, safety, adoption, and economic value.
• Translate demonstrated value into sustainable earned revenue.
• Help design an AI-native operating system that can eventually extend beyond housing.
• Participate in the mutual selection of the second founding AI Alpha.
• Operate as an intellectual, technical, and strategic peer within the founding team.

Your initial demonstration of value

Rather than completing a conventional technical interview, qualified finalists will be invited to propose an initial scope of work demonstrating what they, and the agents they orchestrate, can accomplish.

To support the development of an informed proposal, finalists will have the opportunity to:

• Conduct one or more informational interviews with the housing-domain expert
• Speak with selected members of the organization’s network of housing owners, operators, residents, service providers, policymakers, and other industry stakeholders
• Receive references to relevant research, datasets, regulations, systems, workflows, and other existing information sources
• Ask questions needed to understand the industry’s most significant problems, constraints, incentives, and opportunities

These resources are intended to provide a meaningful starting point—not to prescribe the answer. Candidates should use what they learn to determine where AI-native systems can create the greatest measurable value.

Your proposed scope of work should identify:

• The housing problem, opportunity, or workflow you would address
• What you learned through your discovery process
• The stakeholders whose participation or expertise would be required
• The measurable outcome you would commit to delivering
• The agents, tools, data, integrations, and human judgment required
• The time and resources required
• The revenue or verified economic value you expect to generate
• The performance compensation you propose, up to 50% of qualifying revenue attributable to the initial engagement
• The method by which results should be independently verified
• The most important risks, dependencies, and safeguards

If you identify a more valuable opportunity or a stronger way to structure the initial engagement, counter-propose it. Challenging the premise intelligently is part of the evaluation. (eg: Should this be an open-source project more akin to a DAO?)

Finalists will NOT be expected to produce commercially usable work without a mutually agreeable framework for payment.

Who should apply

You may be right for this role if:

• You are already using agents to perform meaningful technical and operational work.
• You believe traditional organizational structures dramatically underestimate what very small, AI-native teams can accomplish.
• You think in systems, incentives, workflows, and measurable outcomes.
• You can move fluently between architecture, product, operations, and economics.
• You have built unusually capable systems with remarkably small teams.
• You know how to translate domain expertise into technical requirements and executable workflows.
• You can listen carefully to stakeholders without becoming constrained by how the industry currently operates.
• You prefer demonstrations over credentials and ownership over narrowly defined responsibilities.
• You are comfortable beginning with ambiguity and converting it into an executable plan.
• You believe powerful AI infrastructure should be governed in the public interest.
• You have the judgment to distinguish what can be automated from what should be automated.
• You want your work to matter at the scale of an industry.

Experience in rental housing is not required. Deep expertise in agent architecture, AI-native product development, automation, or zero-to-one venture building is considerably more important.

We are more interested in evidence of unusual capability than in a particular degree, résumé, employer, or number of years of experience.

Compensation and economic participation

This opportunity is intended to provide extraordinary upside for extraordinary, demonstrable value.

The contemplated structure includes:

• A mutually agreed compensation arrangement for the initial demonstration engagement
• Proposed performance participation of up to 50% of qualifying revenue attributable to that initial engagement
• No predetermined dollar ceiling on performance-based compensation
• Potential longer-term participation of up to 25% of qualifying revenue directly attributable to systems and programs developed through the founding role
• The opportunity to establish a long-term founding leadership position following a successful initial engagement

“Qualifying revenue,” attribution rules, payment timing, costs, performance requirements, and verification standards will be defined in writing before an engagement begins.

All compensation arrangements will be subject to applicable law, independent nonprofit governance, fair-market-value review, and advance approval by the organization’s authorized governing body.

Selecting your founding counterpart

The objective is not simply to recruit two individually talented people. It is to form a founding unit capable of combining extraordinary technical leverage with deep industry knowledge and real-world stakeholder participation.

As part of your proposal, describe how you would identify and evaluate the second AI Alpha.

Consider:

• Which capabilities should complement your own?
• Where should your perspectives or working styles differ?
• What practical challenge should you complete together?
• How should technical ability, judgment, speed, integrity, and collaboration be assessed?
• How should each candidate engage with the domain expert and stakeholder network?
• What evidence would convince you to trust someone as a founding peer?
• What working principles should govern disagreement, accountability, and decision-making?

We expect the two selected candidates to participate actively in confirming mutual fit before the long-term founding team is finalized.

How to apply

Please submit in order over time as needed:

1. A concise description of something meaningful you have built using AI agents
2. Your proposed process for the initial scope of work, including: (can iterate)
3. The stakeholders you would want to interview or involve
4. The measurable outcome and economic value you believe you can produce
5. Your proposed compensation structure for the initial engagement
6. Your framework for selecting the second founding AI Alpha
7. Any counter-proposal you believe represents a stronger starting point

Traditional résumés and educational credentials may be included, but demonstrated capability, judgment, integrity, and ambition will carry substantially more weight.

AI for Good. Extraordinary leverage. Industry participation. Public-benefit governance. Uncapped potential.

The nonprofit partner is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law. Reasonable accommodations are available throughout the selection process.