KAP 2026-2027 - AI-Native Builder / Platform Associate - Mercatus Center
About The Position
The Koch Associate Program (KAP) is a career accelerator for early to mid-career professionals with a drive to tackle our country’s most pressing challenges in more effective, principled ways. KAP equips associates with the tools, mindsets, and community to succeed as social entrepreneurs—individuals excited to find new and better ways to break barriers and eliminate injustice. Associates spend one day each week engaging in experiential learning with Stand Together Fellowships and work at one of our many partner organizations the rest of the week. Our curriculum is designed to supercharge your development and equip you for long-term success as you seek to have an impact on the problems that prevent people from realizing their potential. Marginal Revolution University · Mercatus Center We're rebuilding MRU's learner and teacher platforms, and we build with AI agents from the ground up — coding, testing, content, and operations. We're looking for someone early in their career to build alongside our team and own real work, using AI as their primary tool. A CS degree or coding background is a plus, not a requirement. What matters more is that you've built things and that you're the kind of person who teaches yourself the next thing without being asked.
Requirements
- Built and shipped things (apps, automations, tools, scrapers, sites).
- Reach for AI agents instinctively.
- Ability to read AI-generated code, spot errors, and fix them.
- High agency: spot what needs doing and move it forward without waiting to be told.
- Take more ownership as you earn it.
- Naturally curious: ask why things work and dig until you understand them.
- Turn understanding into something useful.
- Good collaborator: communicate clearly and work well with a small team.
- Judgment with AI output: treat agent output as a draft to verify, not gospel.
- A CS degree or coding background is a plus, not a requirement.
- Must have built things.
- Must be the kind of person who teaches yourself the next thing without being asked.
Nice To Haves
- Creative thinking.
- Systems thinking.
- A genuine interest in economics.
Responsibilities
- Prompting, reviewing, and shipping work through an AI agent system.
- Building and testing new platform features.
- Helping run security reviews.
- Designing workflows and prompts for agent-assisted development.
- Testing features.
- Updating and publishing content.
- Keeping the site healthy.
- Building, reviewing, and automating reports on learner platform usage.
- Standing up a ticketing system and its AI workflows.
- Keeping integrations (syncs and third-party services) running and reliable.
- Improving how platform integrations communicate.
- Owning content migration, publishing, and release testing.
Benefits
- Experiential learning with Stand Together Fellowships.
- Career accelerator program.
- Community to succeed as social entrepreneurs.
- Curriculum designed to supercharge development.
- Equipped for long-term success.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
Associate degree
