Senior AI Researcher

About Oz Oz is building the memory layer for families. We help couples and parents stay present without forgetting by turning everyday household conversations into useful intelligence — think Apple Photos Memories, but for the conversations that happen around the kitchen table. Oz helps families remember decisions, notice meaningful patterns over time, surface important moments, and strengthen relationships before the details of everyday life disappear. Oz began as an experiment inside our own family and has evolved into an ambient intelligence platform running in real households across the country. We have deployed devices into the homes of strangers who found us organically and paid hundreds of dollars to join our Alpha program, we process millions of words of household conversation, and we are building one of the first longitudinal datasets focused on family life. We are still early, but we believe families deserve the same level of intelligence and support that businesses have long had — and we are looking for people who want to help define an entirely new category. Oz was founded by Greg and Danielle Neufeld, who have worked together for over a decade building and operating ValueStream Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on vertical software and applied AI. This role would be among our earliest hires and would help shape both the product and the culture of the company from the ground up.

The Role We are looking for an unusually curious researcher who can code. This role sits at the intersection of quantitative research, product thinking, and operations. You will work directly alongside the founders on some of the most important open questions in the company.

Day to day, you will: • Investigate the signals emerging from household data and design and run experiments to test what they mean • Evaluate whether Oz’s interpretations align with family truth • Coordinate work across AI agents and synthesize findings into clear evidence memos • Help determine how the product learns over time and help shape entirely new areas of the product Because we are in the earliest stages of building Oz, there is unusually direct access to decision-making and a meaningful opportunity to define future functions and teams. We expect this role to evolve into multiple future functions as Oz grows — including signal research, meaning research, and household intelligence operations. The right candidate feels energized, not intimidated, by the sentence: “No one has done this before.

Who We’re Looking For Must-Haves • Strong quantitative reasoning and analytical skills • Ability to code independently (Python preferred) • Experience designing experiments and testing hypotheses against real data • Excellent written communication and memo writing • Comfort working with ambiguity and incomplete information • Demonstrated curiosity and evidence-based thinking • Ability to use modern AI tools as part of daily work • Excitement about consumer products and helping families thrive

Good-to-Haves • Experience with voice, audio, ambient computing, or wearable devices • Familiarity with statistics, machine learning, or data science workflows • Experience conducting user research or product investigations • Experience using LLMs and agentic workflows Startup experience • Backgrounds in quantitative finance, behavioral science, speech technology, education, healthcare, consumer technology, or adjacent research-heavy domains • Personally identifies with the target customer: young families, newly married couples, or people actively building intentional relationships

How We Work We value curiosity, ownership, and clear thinking. We care much more about evidence than hierarchy, and much more about good questions than quick answers. We work asynchronously by default and rely heavily on written communication. We document our reasoning, write research memos, and use AI extensively to accelerate investigation and execution. Rather than optimizing for meetings, we optimize for learning. We overlap regularly with India working hours and are comfortable collaborating across time zones. The people who thrive here tend to enjoy ambiguity, move fluidly between strategy and execution, and are energized by building something entirely new. Because we are still early, everyone has the opportunity to influence not only what Oz becomes, but how Oz works.

Why Join Oz is one of those rare opportunities to help define an entirely new category. The people who join early won’t just execute against a roadmap — they’ll help discover what the roadmap should be, investigate questions no one has answered before, and influence the product, culture, and future structure of the company. Because we are small, exceptional work is visible immediately. The founders have spent more than a decade building and investing in early-stage technology companies, so early team members gain exposure not only to Oz but to a broader ecosystem of founders, operators, and investors. We care deeply about helping people build extraordinary careers.

Interview Process 1. Recruiter screen — focused on communication skills, curiosity, and alignment with the role. 2. Founder conversation — exploring your background, motivations, and how you approach ambiguous problems. 3. Paid work sample — a small project mirroring the real role: investigate a dataset, evaluate competing hypotheses, synthesize findings into a memo, or use AI tools to answer an open-ended research question. 4. Work-sample discussion — less about the “right” answer, more about how you reason, communicate uncertainty, incorporate evidence, and adapt your thinking. 5. Final conversations — mutual fit, expectations, and whether you’re energized by helping define a new category from the ground up. For strong candidates, we expect to move fr For strong candidates, we expect to move from first conversation to decision within 1–2 weeks. Exceptional candidates may move faster.