Lead AI Engineer

Veracity Insurance; United States; Remote; USD 200,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision plans

4 weeks of Paid Time Off

10 Paid Company Holidays with 2 floats

401K with employer match

Personal assistance programs

Job summary

Veracity Insurance seeks a Lead AI Engineer to be the organization’s top authority on AI strategy, architecture and adoption. You’ll shape AI across a customer-facing digital platform serving small businesses nationwide, guiding build vs. buy, platform choices, and safe, scalable AI tooling.

This role is a systems leadership position, not people management. You’ll bridge engineering, product, and leadership, owning high-stakes architectural decisions and setting guardrails for AI-generated code

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of software engineering experience with a meaningful portion in production AI/ML or LLM/GenAI systems
• 2+ years building production LLM/GenAI and agentic systems with tooling
• Demonstrated track record of rebuilding business processes with AI in production
• Experience with AI-assisted coding tooling and guardrails for AI-generated code
• Proficiency in Python and GenAI application stacks
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills suitable for board-level presentations

Responsibilities

• Define the AI engineering roadmap and architecture standards
• Lead build vs. buy vs. integrate decisions for AI systems
• Evaluate emerging AI tools and provide defensible recommendations
• Serve as the technical escalation point for AI/ML design challenges
• Architect AI solutions for the enterprise platform across process and infrastructure layers
• Design scalable, reliable, cost-efficient AI systems for production
• Establish LLMOps practices including prompts, configs, and guardrails
• Ensure AI systems integrate with existing product and engineering infrastructure
• Collaborate with Product/Engineering leadership to align AI with business outcomes
• Provide guidance on resource allocation and project sequencing
• Translate complex concepts for non-technical stakeholders
• Champion AI-assisted coding practices and developer tooling
• Define standards for responsible AI development and security

Skills

Software engineering

Production AI/ML

Python

Architectural thinking

Stakeholder communication

Build vs. buy decisions

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

LLMOps tooling

Vector databases

Model-provider SDKs

Job description

At Veracity, we aim to be a different kind of insurance partner – one that is free from outside investors, venture capital, or the pressures of a corporate parent.

Ours is a culture of empowerment – one that believes in effort, results, and accountability. We believe that transparency fosters trust, trust foster[s?] growth, and that growth drives innovation. Our commitment to rigorous evaluation and relentless execution lead to rapid evolution.

We answer only to the small business owners we serve, and this independence allows us to stay focused on what matters most: helping their businesses thrive by providing expert guidance and best-in-class insurance policies.

We’re growing fast and want you to be a part of it!

We are seeking a Lead AI Engineer to serve as our organization's foremost technical authority on artificial intelligence strategy, architecture, and adoption. At Veracity, that means shaping how AI is built and scaled across a customer-facing digital insurance platform serving small business owners nationwide – from how we surface coverage recommendations to how we prepare for a world where AI agents increasingly research and purchase insurance on behalf of human customers.

This is not a people management role – it is a systems leadership role. You will act as the connective tissue between engineering, product, and business leadership, making and owning the high-stakes technical decisions: build vs. buy, platform selection, architectural patterns, and AI tooling standards. You will bring structure and discipline to our AI practice while operating with the urgency and adaptability of a fast-moving, independent company.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Strategy & Direction

• Define the AI engineering roadmap and architecture standards across the organization

• Lead build vs. buy vs. integrate decision-making for AI systems and platforms – and be accountable for articulating how you arrived at those decisions

• Evaluate emerging tools, frameworks, and models; provide clear, defensible recommendations to leadership

• Serve as the ultimate technical escalation point for complex AI/ML system design challenges

Enterprise Systems & Scaling

• Architect AI solutions for our enterprise platform – which is actively being upgraded and requires someone comfortable working across both the process layer and the underlying platform architecture as a normal part of the role, not just layering AI on top of stable infrastructure

• Design systems for scale, reliability, and cost-efficiency in production environments

• Establish LLMOps practices – evaluation and regression suites for LLM-powered features, cost and quality observability, versioned prompts and configs with staged rollout and rollback, and production guardrails

• Ensure AI systems integrate cleanly with existing product and engineering infrastructure

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to align AI capabilities with business outcomes

• Receive operational support to help initiate and coordinate cross-functional engagement, allowing you to stay focused on technical leadership and decision-making

• Provide clear guidance on resource allocation – who owns what, who should be engaged, and in what sequence

• Translate complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences, including executives and business stakeholders

• Challenge direction constructively and push back on approaches that compromise long-term system health

AI Coding & Process Transformation

• Champion and introduce AI-assisted coding practices and developer tooling across the engineering organization

• Define standards for responsible AI development including guardrails, evaluation frameworks, and security considerations

• Drive continuous improvement in how the organization builds and ships AI-powered features

Requirements and Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with a meaningful portion in production AI/ML or LLM/GenAI systems – strong judgment and vision at the 5–6 year mark will not be screened out on tenure alone

• 2+ years building production LLM/GenAI and agentic systems, plus fluency with AI-assisted coding tooling and the judgment to set org-wide standards, evals, and guardrails for AI-generated code

• Demonstrated track record of taking an existing business process apart and rebuilding it with AI at the core within an existing enterprise environment – shipped to production and owned the outcome

• Production experience with LLM/GenAI and agentic systems – agent orchestration, tool calling, RAG, structured outputs – with the fluency to set org-wide standards, evals, and guardrails for AI-generated code

• Sound judgment about where AI belongs and where it must not – comfortable with probabilistic agents for customer-facing and research tasks, while treating policy binding, money movement, and compliance flows as deterministic, auditable, and human-governed; this framing is non-negotiable in an insurance context

• Experience making and communicating build vs. buy vs. integrate decisions at an organizational level

• Proficiency in Python and the modern GenAI application stack – agent and orchestration frameworks, model-provider SDKs, vector databases, and evaluation tooling; screened for fluency with the stack generally, not a specific checklist of tools

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills – you can write a crisp architecture decision record and present it to a board-level audience

Preferred

• Direct evidence of legacy-process redesign with real latitude to alter underlying platform architecture – not just process work layered on top of stable infrastructure

• Enterprise or regulated-domain experience, ideally in a business context closer to insurance or financial services

• Experience in a technical lead or principal engineer role with broad organizational influence

• Background working closely with product engineering teams in a dual-track agile model

• Experience with AI cost management, observability, and governance frameworks

Perks

• Health, dental, and vision plans

• Amazing work-life balance with 4 weeks of Paid Time Off

• 10 Paid Company Holidays with 2 floating holidays

• 401K Programs with employer match

• Personal assistance programs for support in a healthy personal and work life

Why Veracity?

Here at Veracity, you’ll be part of a team of trailblazers and visionaries. We’re not just revolutionizing the way people “do” insurance; we are creating a whole new paradigm. Here, you will experience a vibrant and inclusive workplace where your ideas matter! With us, you have a chance to:

Engage in groundbreaking projects that are reshaping the insurance landscape

Collaborate with a group of dedicated, like-minded professionals

Experience a culture that prioritizes growth and development

Compensation Range:$200k/yr - $220k/yr+ 10% Bonus

We are proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal opportunities to all qualified applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or any other legally protected characteristics.

If you need accommodation, please let us know during the interview process.