AI Systems Builder

The Role

Black Kanyon is a private equity holding company that acquires and builds operational businesses and real estate. Our portfolio spans manufacturing and outdoor products — real companies with real operational complexity. We are not trying to catch up to AI. We are hiring someone to make sure we never have to.

This is a full-time, dedicated role at the holding company level. The person we hire will own AI implementation across Black Kanyon and our portfolio companies. That means going into each company, understanding what slows them down, and building the systems that fix it — not recommending tools, but actually building the workflows and seeing them through to adoption.

If your idea of AI work is writing prompts and forwarding articles about what’s coming next, this is not the job for you. If you have a running list of things you’ve built, a strong opinion about which tools are worth the hype, and you get restless when something isn’t working as well as it could — keep reading.

What You’ll Do

You will move through our portfolio companies on a rotating basis, spending time on-site to understand the operational realities of each business before you build anything. The problems you’ll solve will vary — a manufacturer managing production scheduling by spreadsheet, a sales team spending hours on manual reporting, an HR function buried in repetitive administrative work. Your job is to identify where AI can genuinely move the needle, build the solution, and make sure the team actually uses it.

Day to day, that looks like:

•       Conducting discovery conversations with leadership and frontline teams to identify high-value problems worth solving

•       Designing and building AI-powered workflows using no-code and low-code platforms (Make, n8n, Zapier) and direct API integrations with LLMs like Claude and OpenAI

•       Connecting disparate systems — including ERPs, inventory platforms, and manufacturing software — where off-the-shelf connectors don’t exist

•       Training and supporting teams on the tools you build so adoption actually sticks

•       Tracking what’s working, measuring impact, and iterating

•       Staying ahead of the AI landscape and making informed decisions about what new tools are worth pursuing and what is noise

You will report to the Chief Performance Officer of Black Kanyon and work closely with company leadership across the portfolio. This role operates with significant autonomy — there is no committee to approve your direction on every decision. You’ll be expected to move, communicate clearly, and own your outcomes.

What We’re Looking For

Must-Haves

You have built things. Not in theory — actually built and deployed AI-powered workflows or automations in a real operational context. We care less about where you went to school and more about whether you can show us what you’ve shipped.

You are fluent in no-code and low-code workflow tools and understand how to connect systems that weren’t designed to talk to each other. When you hit a wall that a platform can’t solve natively, you know how to read API documentation and find another way through.

You can walk into one of our portfolio companies — a business with its own software, its own language, and its own way of doing things — and earn trust quickly. People will follow your lead on adoption not because it’s mandated, but because you communicated clearly and built something that makes their job easier.

You keep up with the AI tool landscape and you have genuine opinions about it. You can distinguish between a tool that is genuinely useful and one that is receiving attention because of good marketing. You are not easily impressed, and that makes your recommendations credible.

You work independently. Not in the sense that you disappear — in the sense that you don’t need someone to tell you what to do next. You see a problem, you map a solution, you build it, you tell the right people what happened.

Nice to Have

•       Basic to intermediate Python — enough to write a script, hit an API, or process data when the no-code tools run out of road

•       Experience working across multiple business units or companies simultaneously

•       Background in operations, manufacturing, or other non-tech industries — you’ll be building for people on production floors, not software teams

•       Formal coursework or certification in AI, data science, or software development

•       Experience facilitating training sessions or leading change management efforts in small-to-mid-size organizations

Our Core Values 

•        Grit — You find a way when others see a dead end. You embrace hard things and don’t give up.

•        Humbly Confident — You give honest feedback, operate without ego, and know your stuff.

•        Positive — You bring energy, stay solution-oriented, and make the best of everything.

•        Hungry — You pursue exceptionalism, walk with purpose, and choose discipline over comfort.

Location & Travel

This role is remote-first, with regular travel to Lake Norden, SD (Black Kanyon headquarters) and our portfolio companies. Travel frequency will depend on project phase — expect more presence during discovery and launch, less during steady-state operation. If you’re local to the Midwest, that’s a practical advantage. Wherever you’re based, you need to be genuinely comfortable spending time on-site in operational environments.

About Black Kanyon

Black Kanyon acquires founder-led businesses and installs the high-performing leadership teams that take them to the next level. That is how we add value — not through financial engineering, but through people. We operate by a set of Nine Principles of Exceptionalism and core values — Grit, Humbly Confident, Positive, and Hungry — that aren’t wall art. They are how we hire, how we operate, and how we hold each other accountable. We are a small team with a long runway and a bias toward action. The people who thrive here are the ones who take ownership seriously and don’t wait to be told what good looks like.

We are early in our AI journey as a company, and we know it. This hire exists because we intend to change that — not incrementally, but decisively. If you want to build something that matters inside real companies with real stakes, this is the opportunity.