Senior AI Engineer

Drata; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 192,000 - 259,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

100% employer-paid health premiums

401(k) plan

Parental leave

Generous professional development stipends

Flexible vacation policy

Job summary

Drata is looking for a Senior AI Engineer in San Francisco, CA to design and build AI systems that enhance decision-making and improve operational efficiency. Key responsibilities include developing large language models (LLM) and agentic workflows, ensuring AI outputs are trustworthy and compliant. The ideal candidate has over 7 years of software engineering experience, particularly in ML/AI, and is proficient in Python. Drata offers competitive salaries, equity, and comprehensive benefits, including health coverage and professional development support.

Qualifications

• Experience in compliance, security, risk, or audit domains is a plus.
• Familiarity with Snowflake-based analytics or knowledge graphs is beneficial.
• Experience partnering with non-technical stakeholders is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement LLM-powered systems for decision support.
• Build AI systems for regulatory interpretation and evidence validation.
• Partner with teams to operationalize AI effectively.

Skills

Software engineering experience

ML/AI engineering

Python proficiency

Problem-solving

Collaboration

Education

7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience; 2+ years in ML/AI engineering

Tools

Python

TypeScript

Vector databases (Pinecone, Chroma, FAISS)

LLM-based applications

Job description

Job Summary

Drata is advancing the frontier of compliance automation by integrating intelligent AI capabilities into its platform. We are seeking a Senior AI Engineer to help design, build, and scale robust, high-impact AI systems that improve operational efficiency, enhance decision-making, and support trust-critical enterprise workflows.

What You'll Do

• Build Agentic & Intelligent AI Systems
  • Design and implement LLM-powered systems capable of multi-step reasoning, evidence grounding, and decision support in high-trust domains.
  • Develop agentic workflows that combine retrieval, tool use, structured reasoning, and human oversight.
  • Create interactive AI experiences that allow users to engage naturally with complex compliance and risk data.
• Automated Reasoning Over Regulations & Evidence
  • Build AI systems that reason over structured and unstructured data to support regulatory interpretation, control alignment, and evidence validation.
  • Ensure AI outputs are traceable, explainable, and auditable, meeting the expectations of enterprise customers and auditors.
• Production-Grade AI Architecture
  • Architect and deploy scalable LLM + retrieval + agent systems in production environments.
  • Optimize for latency, cost, reliability, and evaluation in real-world enterprise workloads.
  • Partner with platform, security, product teams, and other application development teams with diverse skill sets to operationalize AI safely and effectively.
• Responsible & Trustworthy AI
  • Embed human-in-the-loop workflows, confidence thresholds, and safety guardrails into AI systems.
  • Ensure privacy-preserving data handling, robust failure modes, and transparent behavior aligned with Drata’s trust principles.

What You'll Bring

• Experience: 7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience; 2+ years specifically in ML/AI engineering.
• Programming Languages: Proficiency in Python; TypeScript experience is a plus, especially for production AI system integrations.
• Retrieval & Vector Stores: Familiarity with vector databases (Pinecone, Chroma, FAISS, etc.) and RAG system design.
• LLM & AI Systems: Proven experience building and shipping LLM-based applications in production, including embeddings, RAG, agent frameworks, prompt engineering, and evaluation.
• Production Expertise: Track record of taking AI systems from concept to production, designing scalable, maintainable solutions.
• Problem Solving: Ability to decompose complex tasks into agentic workflows and reason over high-stakes, structured, and unstructured data.
• Collaboration: Experience working cross-functionally with product, compliance, security, engineering teams, and partnering with other application development teams with diverse skill sets.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience in compliance, security, risk, or audit domains.
• Familiarity with Snowflake-based analytics, knowledge graphs, or enterprise data platforms.
• Experience partnering with non-technical stakeholders such as compliance or GRC teams.

Role Scope & Impact

• This role defines how AI is responsibly embedded into a trust-critical enterprise platform. Your work will:
  • Establish foundational agentic AI capabilities that power multiple present and future product experiences.
  • Enable customers to derive accurate, explainable insights from complex compliance and security data.
  • Set the technical and ethical standard for applying modern AI in regulated, high-stakes environments.

How We Support You

At Drata, our people are our strongest advantage—and we prove it with support that exceeds industry standards. Our total rewards package is designed to power your well-being, accelerate your growth, and keep your work-life balance thriving. Explore how we invest in your Life at Drata.

• Shared Success: We provide stock equity to ensure that as the company grows, you share directly in that success. Equity gives every employee a sense of ownership and the opportunity to celebrate our wins together.
• Health & Wellness: Up to 100% employer-paid premiums for medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their dependents, along with comprehensive wellness benefits and healthcare concierge services.
• Financial Well-being: A comprehensive suite of financial benefits, including a 401(k) plan, company-paid life and disability insurance, tax-advantaged spending accounts, and discounted voluntary offerings.
• Family Support: Parental Leave after six months of employment; access to fertility and family-building benefits and dedicated leave specialists.
• Growth & Development: Generous annual stipends for professional and personal development and access to internal learning opportunities.
• Time Off & Flexibility: Flexible vacation policy, paid holidays, and other perks to support rest and renewal.

This role will receive a competitive base salary, benefits, and/or stock. Salary ranges are tiered by location and subject to change. Tier 1: 192,000 - 259,800; Tier 2: 172,800 - 233,800; Tier 3: 153,600 - 207,800. You can view which tier applies to where you plan to work here. Ranges may be modified and final offers may vary.