Head of Applied AI at Physical Superintelligence
Boston, MA
—
Jul 30, 2026
Boston, MA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A founding leadership role at an early-stage AI/physics startup, responsible for building and running the Applied AI organization that delivers commercial engagements — scoping customer problems, building models and simulations, and shipping working solutions. The role is explicitly player-coach: the head carries individual technical work on engagements while also hiring the team, owning customer delivery end-to-end, and serving as the technical counterpart to sales. It suits a senior applied-ML leader with a track record of building customer-facing technical functions from scratch.
Principal level · 8+ years · Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH · Full-time
Quick apply — this platform usually takes a CV and a few fields.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 120 people in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (computer and information systems managers). range 50–180
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $219,687 (middle half $178,102–$275,447).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 1, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The role is titled 'Head of Applied AI' with no explicit seniority level in the title, but the scope — building a function from scratch, org-wide commercial ownership, player-coach technical leadership — clearly supports a Principal-level classification.
SOC classification is a genuine judgment call: the role has substantial people-management and org-building duties (pointing toward 11-3021) but is explicitly described as a player-coach with hands-on ML/simulation work (pointing toward 15-2051). 11-3021 was chosen because hiring, team-building, and owning the function's P&L are the primary framing.
Compensation is described only as 'competitive … salary, benefits, and meaningful early-stage equity' — no figures are given.
A PhD or master's in a quantitative discipline is listed under 'Nice to Have', so the degree requirement is set to None.
OpenFOAM, Ansys, and COMSOL are listed under 'Nice to Have' as interchangeable physics-simulation tools; they are captured as a single preferred skill with alternatives.
Physics or engineering literacy in a quantitative domain is required but names no specific tool or technology, so it is omitted from the skills list per the generic-concept rule.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.