Staff Machine Learning Engineer

Steadily Insurance Company; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Meaningful equity

Flexible health savings accounts

Job summary

A leading insurance firm in Austin is seeking a Staff Applied Data Scientist. The role involves designing and deploying data models, requiring 5+ years of experience in Data Science. Candidates should be proficient in R/Python and able to balance speed and quality in problem-solving. This full-time position offers competitive compensation and equity, alongside a unique company culture and growth opportunities.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience applying Data Science methods to production problems.
• Ability to dive into a complex codebase without too much spin-up.
• Prior experience as a team lead is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve data sets and models focusing on scalability and quality.
• Lead exploration and implementation of new areas of science application.
• Write clean, maintainable R/Python code to ensure high quality.

Skills

Data Science methods

R/Python coding

Model evaluation

Curiosity

Job description

Location: Austin, TX
Employment Type: Full-time, In-Office
Compensation: Total compensation between $250,000 - $360,000. Salary of $180,000-$250,000 annually plus equity.
Department: Engineering
As a Staff Applied Data Scientist

You will play a key technical role on our Engineering team, identifying and evaluating trends, insights across large data sets and where having more refined data or internal ML/AI models could improve our product outcomes or operations. You’ll own building, evaluating, and deploying these models to production and monitor for quality and accuracy over time to prevent regressions and ensure continued relevance. We operate across data types including public, proprietary and a large volume of image data. You’ll operate with a high degree of autonomy and serve as a trusted technical owner for business problems across the organization. Steadily is still early in our exploration and application of where AI/ML models can drive the biggest business value, so this role is ideal for Scientists who like operating in ambiguous environments and to explore where the most impactful focus and methods should be applied.

This is a full-time, in-office position based in Austin, TX.

Job Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve data sets and models with an emphasis on scalability, quality and maintainability, identifying the appropriate technique and approach to meet the needs of the business. Focus areas could be estimating risk at the property level, how to accurately assess property costs and using aerial image analysis or modelling techniques to identify individual attributes that feed into other models.
• Own and lead exploration and implementation of new areas of science application in our product ecosystem to better predict risk both on a per-insured level and in aggregate across the entire portfolio.
• Write clean, maintainable R/Python code, setting a high bar for quality and adherence to best practices.
• Partner closely with Engineering, Product, Operations and Business teams to design reliable solutions across systems.
• Provide excellent metrics and visibility into model quality, bias and performance to assess how it’s helping the business ensure a high bar of scientific rigor and evaluation.

What We’re Looking For

• Experienced: 5+ years experience applying Data Science methods to production problems. We expect you to be able to dive into a complex codebase without too much spin-up. Past experience as a team lead is definitely a plus.
• Builder: You like the product-side of data and think about how to apply modeling and evaluation techniques to real-world problems. You have thoughtful opinions about where the data leads and how to maximize the business impact of your work.
• Pragmatic: We prioritize impact and delivery. You balance speed and quality, making thoughtful trade-offs to solve problems effectively. You leverage off-the-shelf solutions so we don’t re-invent the wheel but understand when a custom solution is appropriate.
• Curious: you are not just an order-taker... you are curious about what makes the business tick and you learn the intricacies of how it runs. This results in strong intuition for when analysis is wrong and leads you to suggest ideas and insights that nobody thought to ask for. You’re not the type of scientist who wants fully fleshed-out specs thrown over the wall for you to implement.

Nice To Have

• Actuarial experience, or experience applying models to risk evaluation and aggregation problems.
• Experience in vision photo analysis

Additional Information

• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

What We Offer

• Compensation above market: $250,000 total comp including meaningful equity.
• Insurance: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, HSA, FSA
• Retirement: 401(k)
• A high-growth environment where your work will have a direct impact on the company’s trajectory.

Why Join Steadily

• Good company. Our founders have three successful startups under their belt and have recruited a stellar team to match.
• Top compensation. We pay at the top of the Austin market (see comp).
• Growth opportunity: We’re an early-stage, fast-growing company where you’ll wear a lot of hats and shape product decisions.
• Strong backing. We’re growing fast, we manage over $20 billion in risk, and we’re exceptionally well-funded.
• Culture: Steadily boasts a very unique culture that our teammates love. We call it like we see it and we’re nothing if not candid. Plus, we love to have a good time. Check out our culture deck to learn what we’re all about.
• Awards: We’ve been recognized both locally and nationally as a top place to work. We were named a Top 2025 Startup in Newsweek, winner of Austin Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2025, recognized in Investopedia’s Best Landlord Insurance Companies, ranked No. 6 on Inc’s list of Fastest Growing Regional Companies, 44th on Forbes’ 2025 Best Startup Employers list, and 63rd on the prestigious Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list.

We’re excited to meet you! Compensation Range: $250K - $360K