AI Engineer
$200,000+ Offers For Graduates $200,000+ Offers For Graduates 

3 weeks remote, 7 weeks onsite in Austin, TX
80–100 hours/week for 10 weeks
Short-term contract
Hybrid location
full-time (90 hrs/week)

AI Engineer   $200,000+ Offers For Graduates $200,000+ Offers For Graduates 

Description

Gauntlet is a selective, fully funded 10-week fellowship designed for experienced engineers seeking to accelerate their careers by demonstrating their ability to build and deploy production-grade AI systems under real-world constraints. Fellows ship work weekly, collaborate with experienced operators, and gain direct access to founders, CTOs, and hiring partners.

Participants in the most recent cohort obtained more than 300 first-round interviews with hiring partners. The program aims for 100% of graduates to receive offers from partner companies, with minimum starting compensation of $200,000.

The fellowship spans 10 weeks: an initial 3-week remote phase, followed by 7 weeks onsite in Austin, Texas. Participants should anticipate a demanding schedule (80–100 hours per week) structured to maximize learning velocity, performance signal, and career results.

Key outcomes:

  • More than 10 deployed AI applications delivered during the program
  • Access to Gauntlet's alumni network and hiring partner ecosystem
  • Graduates secure job offers of $200,000 or more from hiring partners

If you ship rapidly, perform under pressure, and prefer your work—not your resume—to define your next opportunity, submit your application now.

What you will be doing

  • Deliver production-ready AI applications weekly according to strict deadlines
  • Work with modern AI-first workflows including agents, tool use, evaluations, retrieval, and deployment
  • Collaborate and compete with top-tier engineering talent in a high-feedback setting
  • Present your work directly to CTOs, founders, and hiring partners
  • Convert real project briefs into scoped, reliable, deployable systems

What you will NOT be doing

  • Devoting weeks to theory, tutorials, or passive learning without shipping code
  • Creating demos that are never exposed to real usage or evaluation
  • Refining resumes and portfolios rather than building and deploying functional systems
  • Attending weeks of lectures and coursework before engaging with real code

Key responsibilities

Build and deliver production-grade AI systems on a weekly cadence, transforming demonstrated engineering performance into $200K+ career opportunities through Gauntlet's hiring partner network.

Candidate requirements

  • 3+ years of professional engineering experience (or equivalent demonstrated ability)
  • Have independently designed, implemented, and deployed at least one working software system to production or active users
  • High responsiveness to feedback and extreme execution intensity
  • Authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship
  • Willing to commit to 80–100 hour weeks and relocate to Austin for 7 weeks

Meet a successful candidate

Watch Interview
Fabiano Lucchese
Fabiano  |  SVP of Software Engineering
Brazil

Does your company encourage your natural creativity? This Brazilian engineering leader rediscovered his purpose after unleashing both his an...

Meet Fabiano

Applying for a role? Here’s what to expect.

Crossover's skill assessment process combines innovative AI power with decades of human research, to take the guesswork, human bias, and pointless filters out of recruiting high-performing teams.

Chat-style
screening interview.
STEP 1

Chat-style
screening interview.

Cognitive 
aptitude test.
STEP 2

Cognitive 
aptitude test.

Prove real-world 
job skills.
STEP 3

Prove real-world 
job skills.

Interview with the hiring manager.
STEP 4

Interview with the hiring manager.

Pass
proctored test.
STEP 5

Pass
proctored test.

Accept job offer.
STEP 6

Accept job offer.

Frequently asked questions

About Crossover

What you will learn

Phase 1: Remote (Weeks 1–3) — Foundations of AI-First Engineering

  • AI-first development workflows including coding agents, MCP, and real-time collaboration
  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, and vector databases
  • Rapid project sprints with a focus on shipping under constraints

Phase 2: Onsite in Austin (Weeks 4–10) — Production AI Systems at Scale

  • Agent systems, evaluations, verification, and observability (LangChain/LangSmith/LangFuse/CrewAI)
  • Enterprise-grade delivery including QA, reliability, and high-standards execution
  • Fine-tuning and deployment patterns (LoRA/QLoRA with production integration)
  • Multi-agent modernization of existing real-world codebases
  • Multimodal AI development (image/video/voice) and scalable infrastructure (AWS/Azure)

Meet some people who've landed similar jobs

Why Crossover

Recruitment sucks. So we’re fixing it.

The Olympics of work

The Olympics of work

It’s super hard to qualify—extreme quality standards ensure every single team member is at the top of their game.

Premium pay for premium talent

Premium pay for premium talent

Over 50% of new hires double or triple their previous pay. Why? Because that’s what the best person in the world is worth.

Shortlist by skills, not bias

Shortlist by skills, not bias

We don’t care where you went to school, what color your hair is, or whether we can pronounce your name. Just prove you’ve got the skills.

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