MadMen AI | Founding AI Engineers, Backend Engineer, and Performance Marketer | Bay Area (Hybrid) | Full-time

We're building AI-powered ad agency. Recently raised $8m. Founded by ex-Meta founding team backed by top silicon valley VC firms. We're post-revenue (30% MoM growth).

Apply here: https://usemadmen.ai/careers

MadMen AI | Chief Applied AI Scientist | Bay Area (Burlingame, CA – ONSITE)

MadMen AI is a seed-stage AdTech startup ($8M raised) founded by ex-leaders from Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram. We’re disrupting a $950B industry by automating ad creation with AI agents—blending Don Draper-level creativity with razor-sharp data insights.

Role:

• Lead development of AI systems for ad performance prediction and creative asset generation.

• Define and execute strategies—from data collection to model fine-tuning—to push AI from “80% good” to “99% brilliant.”

• Collaborate directly with a founding team behind multiple $1B+ ad products.

You:

• Have 6+ years of industry experience building 0-to-1 deep learning systems (modeling and evaluation expertise is crucial).

Why MadMen AI?

• Tackle a unique challenge: engineering creativity with AI. Curious? Email us at jobs@usemadmen.ai.

• Join the founding team with massive equity upside.

• Escape the typical “grind culture” – we value velocity over speed and ask plenty of why’s for greater clarity.

• Founded by seasoned AdTech experts focused on long-term impact.

• Post-revenue with +30% MoM growth.

Apply: Send your resume to jobs@usemadmen.ai. More details at https://usemadmen.ai/careers.

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Why would you expect more experience than implied on the article?

His article claims "I’ve tech-led teams at Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter", which is technically accurate. But most people would expect more than 1-2 years at each company, which is his actual experience according to LinkedIn.

Is there anything we can do as a community to prevent this?

RE: What failed?

Agreed this is a problem that your product needs to solve either way. This idea validation playbook allows you to face the problem early on as opposed to later.

RE: What happens when you're building an improved version?

I'd ask you why you think yours is an improved version? Is that a sure shot fact or up for the market to decide. If it's sure shot, they yeah skip the idea validation step. Sounds like your idea has more execution risk than market risk.

But if you think its subjective, then that's probably something you could find a creative way of solving using the Painted Door test or something similar.

Poll of "fellow FB employees" could be replaced with spending ~$100 on Google Ads and using a certain targeting criteria.

but its not

I love that book. Such a tiny book but so much wisdom.

That's a fair point. You need a demo video / sales MVP and need to actually go talk to customers most of the times.

There are certain enterprise specific channels where you could run an ad to test. E.g. https://appsumo.com/

I agree different levels of "skin in the game" mean different signal.

Simple link click is pretty lousy signal and I would ignore it.

I think email is okay. Phone number is probably better. Somebody putting their credit card is really good.

I didn't mention all of that for brevity. But you could device a point based grading system based on what signal you get.

No, none of those things are 'really good' - because none of them have even tried or looked at the product.

A product is a million bits of detail, impossible to discern in a web page.

If you're selling basic widgets, with basic function - sure. By by and large, software is not that.

I’ve done ok with a link to a calendly on the email marketing campaign - you’d be surprised how many people we up for a chat! And as a bonus it solves the awkward timezone issues for me and im not tempted to take 2am calls to be nice!

That's a really interesting idea!