Founding Product Engineer — Rapid Prototyping

The Studio is part of Utopia Capital's integrated venture platform — combining AI-native venture building, capital, and shared infrastructure to help founders build faster and smarter. Every role here directly contributes to launching and scaling AI-native companies across the Global South, from idea to Series A.

About The Studio

The Studio is an AI-native venture builder for the Global South, purpose-built to transform high-barrier problems into scalable, investable companies.

Partnering with domain experts & high-agency founders from concept to Series A, it both builds new ventures and re-engineers existing ones for AI-driven growth.

Powered by UTOPIA OS — a modular, adaptive stack tailored to each venture — it compresses the path from concept to Series A to under 24 months.

About the Role

We're looking for an AI-native product engineer who can bridge engineering, product, and design. You'll take a domain expert's insight and turn it into working AI solutions that people actually want to use.

You'll own the early build cycle: prototype fast, test with real users, and iterate quickly. You'll be building with AI, not just using it — orchestrating agents, automation, and smart workflows to create real value in days instead of months.

This is a founding role, working directly in venture pods to shape how we build the next generation of AI companies from Doha to the Global South.

You will operate as part of a product trio with the Design Lead and the Platform & Infrastructure Engineer, aligning on user insights, prototype scope, and technical feasibility.

Reports to: Studio Directors

Growth path: Head of Product / CTO track

Responsibilities
Rapid Prototyping & Product Engineering

• Design, build, and ship end-to-end AI prototypes using modern tools (Python, FastAPI, LangChain, vector databases, , etc.)
• Integrate AI systems — LLMs, autonomous agents, workflow automation — to make things faster, smarter, and more useful
• Take messy real-world workflows and turn them into clean data models and automated processes
• Work directly with our Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs) to turn their pain points into working pilots
• Test continuously with users, gather feedback, and improve based on what actually matters
• Collaborate with design, growth, and product teams to build things that are both powerful and easy to use
• Share what you learn and build reusable components for Utopia OS so future ventures can move even faster
• Pair with the Design Lead for rapid user tests and with the Platform & Infrastructure Engineer to harden successful prototypes into reusable Utopia OS components.
• Beyond core prototyping, you'll also contribute to early foundations in areas like AI evaluation, lightweight data pipelines, and experimentation metrics — functions that would later mature into dedicated LLMOps or DataOps tracks.
• You'll keep things pragmatic: integrating feedback loops, telemetry, and simple eval metrics into prototypes so learning compounds across ventures.

Collaboration & Continuous Learning

• Partner closely with founders, engineers, and designers in multi-disciplinary pods
• Document prototypes and learnings to improve speed and quality across ventures
• Stay current with advances in AI frameworks, agent systems, and workflow automation
• Contribute to building the studio's shared prototyping frameworks, making each new venture faster than the last
• We operate as a compact, AI-native core team — covering product, design, and engineering end-to-end.
• Each of us contributes to early foundations in areas like evaluation, data, research, and security, ensuring the platform scales responsibly without added layers or headcount.

Impact & Success Metrics

• Prototypes that convert into signed pilots or letters of intent
• Shorter validation cycles — measurable reduction in time from idea to proof of value
• Reusable components and frameworks integrated into Utopia OS
• Founders and EIRs equipped with practical tools and repeatable prototyping processes

Mindset & Values

• Outcome-driven: You focus on solving problems and creating user value, not feature lists.
• AI as amplifier: You use AI to boost creativity and speed, not replace thinking.
• Cross-disciplinary: You move easily between code, UX, and product thinking, balancing speed with empathy.
• Continuous learner: You evolve as AI evolves, experimenting with new models, agents, and frameworks.

What Success Looks Like

• Prototypes that turn into signed pilots or letters of intent
• A repeatable prototyping process that works across multiple ventures
• Faster validation cycles — measurable reduction in the time from idea to proof of value
• Founders and EIRs equipped with frameworks they can actually use to build AI-native products

Experience & Skills

• 5+ years in software or product engineering (startup, SaaS, or applied AI experience preferred)
• You've shipped AI-native products end-to-end — backend, frontend, UX, the whole thing
• Experience building with LLMs, embeddings, agentic frameworks, or autonomous AI systems
• Strong Python skills and comfortable with a modern JS framework (React, , SvelteKit, etc.)
• Familiarity with vector databases, semantic search, and data orchestration
• Collaborative mindset — you work well with non-technical founders and industry experts
• Pragmatic and outcome-oriented. You learn fast, adapt quickly, and ship often.

Why This Role Matters

This is a rare chance to help define what AI-native product engineering means — where builders use AI as a creative partner to shape, test, and evolve real ventures.

You'll build actual products with industry insiders, watch your code turn into funded companies, and help shape the future of AI-driven innovation coming out of Doha.

Your work aligns with Qatar's Vision 2030 to build a knowledge-based, innovation-led economy with global reach.

Who This Role Isn't Right For

If you prefer defined specs or rigid processes, this may not be the right fit.

We move fast, experiment constantly, and expect engineers to own the product from prototype to pilot.

What You Can Expect

• Meaningful Impact: Your work directly contributes to building the core infrastructure behind a new generation of ventures - enabling equitable, AI-native innovation across the Global South.
• Collaborative Culture: We thrive on openness, curiosity, and collective intelligence. Everyone has a voice, and decisions are made transparently.
• Growth Mindset: From AI learning and use budgets to mentorship, we invest in your development and help you grow beyond your comfort zone.
• Competitive Rewards: Tax-free compensation, private health, travel insurance and flexible hybrid setup.
• Work-Life Integration: Office lunches twice a week, great snacks, and team meetups that keep energy and connection high.
• Global Exposure: Occasional travel across Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for meaningful, on-ground collaboration with venture teams.
• Inclusive by Design: We celebrate diversity and are committed to building an environment where everyone belongs.

The Utopia Platform Advantage

The Studio is part of Utopia Capital's integrated venture platform designed to solve the biggest friction points in emerging market venture creation.

Most founders face a broken journey: they struggle to build with limited resources, chase capital across disconnected investors, and lack the infrastructure to scale across regions. We've built a different system.

The Studio co-builds ventures with domain experts using AI-native infrastructure, compressing the path from concept to product. The Radical Fund and A-typical Ventures provide fast, aligned capital from pre-seed through Series A, removing fundraising friction at every stage. And Utopia OS — our shared technical backbone — gives every venture access to the same tools, data systems, and regional networks that would normally take years and millions to build.

This means founders can focus on solving real problems while we handle the build infrastructure, capital coordination, and cross-regional expansion. It's a compounding system: each venture we build makes the next one faster, smarter, and more capital-efficient. That's the platform advantage that you will be part of and contribute to, purpose-built for the complexity of the Global South.

We believe innovation should be inclusive and globally distributed. Our team is built on openness, curiosity, and collaboration — with people from across the GCC, Africa, and Southeast Asia working together to build meaningful ventures.

All roles are based in Doha, Qatar, with flexible hybrid options and global travel opportunities. We welcome talent from every background to join us in shaping the future of AI-native innovation.

Compensation Range: $80K - $120K

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