Senior Staff Engineer - Java / Test Engineering & Applied AI - Hybrid

GEICO; Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 130,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Benefits

Flexible work

Job summary

GEICO in Bethesda, MD is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer to define technical direction for a cross-functional product area, focusing on applied AI and automation. You will guide multi-team roadmaps, drive platform standards, and ensure reliability, security, and operability of AI-enabled solutions.

The role emphasizes hands-on leadership, architecture governance, and mentoring engineers while collaborating with product and analytics stakeholders to translate business needs into resilient

Qualifications

• Experience architecting large-scale SaaS platforms and microservices.
• 2+ years shipping LLM or AI in production with evaluation patterns.
• Deep automated testing practices and AI-assisted testing.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive technical direction for a multi-team platform.
• Lead AI integration and platform capabilities from prototype to production.
• Ensure reliability, security, and operability of AI-enabled systems.
• Mentor engineers and promote communities of practice.

Skills

SaaS platforms

Microservices

GraphQL

gRPC

Java

Python

Kafka

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

AI in production

Automated testing

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent education

Tools

Temporal

Fable

CI/CD tools

OAuth

SAML

Active Directory

Job description

Why Join GEICO?

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.

Why Join GEICO?

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.

Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide.

Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.

Our Senior Staff Engineer works with our engineering organization to innovate and build new systems, improve and enhance existing systems, and identify new opportunities to apply your knowledge to solve critical problems. You will set technical direction for a medium-to-large product or platform capability area, lead the strategy and execution of a multi-team technical roadmap that increases delivery velocity and unlocks new engineering capabilities, and shape how applied AI and intelligent automation are incorporated into enterprise solutions where they materially improve business outcomes. You will define reusable frameworks and standards, drive adoption and buy-in across teams, and communicate technical strategy clearly to tech and business stakeholders. The ideal candidate is self-directed, with deep technical expertise, strong judgment on which AI technologies are appropriate for various use cases, and a track record of raising engineering quality—including automated testing and AI-accelerated test practices—while ensuring solutions meet enterprise standards for reliability, security, and operability.

Position Responsibilities

As a Senior Staff Engineer, You Will

• Own technical architecture and direction for a medium-to-large, cross-functional product or platform capability area; align roadmaps across teams and surface tradeoffs to stakeholders, including applied AI architecture, technology selection, and integration patterns
• Drive adoption of platforms, patterns, and standards—articulate a clear technical vision, build organizational buy-in, and measure uptake across teams
• Collaborate across the tech organization to solve our toughest problems, working with product, domain experts, and analytics partners to translate business needs into technical designs that may include AI components
• Deliver high-quality services and software for a variety of domains, including AI-augmented workflows and intelligent services where appropriate, with accountability for the quality, usability, and performance of the solutions included overseeing how we apply testing and ensure quality to our deliverables.
• Identify and evaluate opportunities to apply AI, intelligent automation, and agentic workflows to enterprise processes, distinguishing high-value use cases from hype-driven experiments
• Define and advance the automated testing strategy for services and platforms across the test pyramid (unit, contract, integration, E2E, performance, and related practices)—including shift-left quality, CI gates, flaky-test reduction, and clear test ownership models and system integrator management
• Accelerate test creation, maintenance, and triage with AI (e.g., AI-assisted test generation, coverage gap analysis, failure clustering, root-cause suggestions, synthetic data, visual/regression assist), with human review, determinism, and governance so AI does not introduce brittle or insecure tests
• Utilize programming languages like Java, C#, or other object-oriented languages, SQL, and NoSQL databases, container orchestration services including Docker and Kubernetes, cloud tools and services across Azure/AWS/GCP, and integrate AI services, model APIs, and orchestration tooling into the platform stack
• Multiply leadership capacity: coach Staff and Senior engineers on architecture, decision-making, and stakeholder communication; sponsor communities of practice; and strengthen applied AI patterns, production evaluation, and responsible deployment practices across the engineering community. Translate technical strategy for tech and business VPs at the right altitude
• Lead department-oriented continuous improvement; participate in communities of practice and industry forums; and sponsor continuous learning that raises technical and non-technical leadership skills across the organization

Qualifications

• Extensive experience architecting and building large-scale SaaS platforms and microservices (GraphQL, gRPC, Java, Python, Kafka) with API and event-driven patterns, deployed on Docker/Kubernetes and major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• 2+ years shipping LLM, generative AI, or intelligent automation in production, with strong judgment on when to use agents, RAG, classical ML, rules-based workflows, or hybrid approaches; experience integrating AI into enterprise services and designing durable, observable workflows (e.g., Temporal, Fable)
• Deep hands‑on expertise across the full lifecycle development including test engineering practices and automated testing, shadow validation and test data management practices.
• Deep automated testing practice across the test pyramid, with proven use of AI to accelerate authoring, maintenance, and failure analysis; governance for non‑deterministic tooling; and production engineering discipline across security (OAuth, SAML, Active Directory), observability, and operating AI‑augmented systems—including evaluation, regression testing, safety, and governance
• Self‑directed Senior Staff technical leadership: ownership of multi‑team product/platform direction; reusable frameworks and standards; driving adoption and buy‑in; mentoring Staff and Senior engineers into leaders; crisp communication to stakeholders; and transferring applied AI and platform capabilities from prototype to production

Experience

• 10+ years full‑stack development experience (Java/C#/Python/Go), with expertise in client‑side and server‑side frameworks
• 6+ years of experience with architecture and technical direction across multiple teams
• 2+ years of applied AI, generative AI, or intelligent automation experience in production, or demonstrable ownership of AI‑enabled platform capabilities
• Significant ownership of automated testing strategy, with evidence of AI‑assisted testing or test‑platform acceleration preferred
• 4+ years of experience with AWS, GCP, Azure, or another cloud service

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent education or work experience

Annual Salary

$130,000.00 - $260,000.00

The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.

At this time, GEICO will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The GEICO Pledge

• Great Company: Protecting customers through life’s twists and turns with innovation and integrity.
• Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.
• Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.
• Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well-being and future.

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.

GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.