Operator-In-Residence (OIR): Vertical AI

About the Company

Primary is a seed-stage venture capital firm dedicated to delivering exceptional support to the founders of transformational businesses. By pairing meaningful investment resources with the largest portfolio impact team of any seed investor, our portfolio companies have reached an industry-best seed-to-A graduation rate. The firm’s Incubation arm, Primary Labs, launched in 2019 to support the ideation, research and launch of new startups. Primary’s first three incubated companies will return its first fund many times over, and Primary is now primed for substantial growth in its Incubation efforts. Check out our blog post, “What Invention and Incubation have in Common” to learn more about Primary’s incubation philosophy.

About the Role

Primary Labs is looking for an Operator-In-Residence (OIR) to join its Incubation program with a focus on vertical AI.

At Primary, we’re doubling down on vertical AI - building and backing companies that solve specific, high-value problems in narrowly defined markets. Our approach is hands-on and customer-driven: we have unfair access to partner deeply with end users, identify unmet needs, and rapidly test solutions at the intersection of software, workflow, and generative AI.

We're looking for a product-obsessed hacker to help us build one — or several — vertical AI companies from scratch.

You should be a cracked builder with a few years of engineering or product experience and a deep grip on the modern AI stack. You're curious, fast, and fearless — ready to dive into obscure industries, hunt down customer conversations, talk to users no one else is talking to, and ship experiments before most teams finish their kickoff decks. You learn by doing: building AI prototypes, spinning up landing pages, cold-emailing customers, reverse-engineering industry workflows, running outbound — whatever it takes to uncover real signal.

Most importantly, you believe that the current AI-driven technological shift presents a unique opportunity to build multi-billion-dollar businesses.

What You'll Do

• Collaborate with the Primary Labs team to source, vet, and pressure-test startup ideas across vertical AI sectors

• Conduct deep customer discovery, market analysis, and competitive landscaping to identify high-conviction problems

• Build MVPs and prototypes to validate key assumptions and iterate quickly toward a solution

• Develop go-to-market strategies, run early experiments (including outbound and growth hacks), and support customer onboarding

• Create pitch decks and other investor materials

• Join the company in its launch phase as a founding team member responsible for gaining initial traction, building out the rest of the team, and supporting business operations or go back to the drawing board with the Incubation program all over again

About You

• Product Obsessed: You have 2–4 years of experience as an engineer, technical product manager, or founder; you’re comfortable getting hands-on with tools and prototypes

• AI-savvy: You’re familiar with the generative AI ecosystem (LLMs, agents, embeddings, RAG, etc.) and excited about applying these technologies in specific industries

• Self-starter: you have an entrepreneur’s intrinsic motivation, capable of independently running with business ideas with substantial ambiguity

• Customer-obsessed: You love talking to users, asking the second question, and building products that solve real pain

• Entrepreneurial: You thrive in ambiguity and enjoy wearing multiple hats. You spend your weekend playing with the latest AI tools, building side projects and studying businesses

• Storyteller: you’re able to learn rapidly, develop a strong point of view, and communicate compelling narratives

• Commercially-minded: you are comfortable with financial models and concepts and can quickly assess the feasibility and scalability of a new venture idea