Staff Engineer - Applied AI

Government Employees Insurance Company; Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 110,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

GEICO is seeking a Staff Engineer, Applied AI to advance Generative AI across the enterprise. You will partner with engineering, data science, and product teams to design, build, and scale AI-powered capabilities that automate workflows and elevate user experiences.

You’ll mentor engineers and help scale agent-based workflows, while delivering production-grade, reliable AI systems at enterprise scale. The role emphasizes collaboration across teams, architecture leadership, and hands-on delivery

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering or ML, with 2+ years in production Gen AI/LLMs.
• Experience enhancing internal processes with AI for automation and decision‑making.
• Strong ability to collaborate across teams and deliver production AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Identify opportunities to automate processes with AI and agent-based systems.
• Architect and deploy AI solutions for automation, document intelligence, and decision support.
• Design AI agents orchestrating tools, APIs, and reasoning steps.
• Mentor engineers in AI, LLMs, and agent workflows.
• Drive experimentation and production readiness of AI systems.

Skills

Generative AI

LLMs

Agent-based workflows

Distributed systems

Knowledge graphs

Workflow orchestration

Mentoring engineers

System scalability

Tools

Spring AI

LangChain4j

Embabel

Vector databases

Job description

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.

GEICO is seeking a Staff Engineer, Applied AI to help shape how Generative AI enhances customer and associate experiences across the enterprise. This is a senior, hands‑on individual contributor role for someone with deep technical expertise, strong collaboration skills, and a proven ability to deliver scalable, resilient, production‑ready AI systems. You will partner with engineering teams, data scientists, and product leaders to design, build, and scale AI‑powered capabilities that automate workflows, improve decision‑making, and elevate user experience. You will also mentor engineers who want to learn AI, LLMs, and agent‑based development, fostering a culture of learning, curiosity, and innovation.

What You Will Do

• Identify and evaluate opportunities for automating business processes using AI, intelligent workflows, and agent‑based systems.
• Architect, build, and deploy applied AI solutions across high‑value enterprise workflows including automation, document intelligence, decision support, and intelligent assistants.
• Design and implement AI agents and agentic workflows that orchestrate tools, APIs, reasoning steps, and business logic to automate complex processes at scale.
• Build systems and services that meet high standards for scalability, resilience, performance, and availability.
• Use knowledge graphs to enhance reasoning, entity relationships, context retrieval, and multi‑step workflows.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, operations, and analytics partners to co‑create scalable AI solutions and translate business needs into technical designs.
• Mentor engineers and scientists who want to develop AI and agentic workflow skills through coaching, pairing, reviews, and architectural guidance.
• Drive innovation by exploring new models, frameworks, and reasoning techniques and applying them creatively to real‑world challenges.
• Lead through technical influence by providing guidance on architecture, experimentation, and deployment across multiple teams.
• Run rigorous experimentation and evaluation including hypothesis definition, measurement, validation, and iterative improvement in production environments.
• Establish and model engineering best practices for reliability, interpretability, safety, governance, and monitoring of production AI systems.

What We Are Looking For (Must Have)

• 8 or more years of professional software engineering or applied machine learning experience, including 2 or more years working with Generative AI or LLM-based systems in production.
• Experience adding intelligence to internal processes and workflows to improve efficiency, automation, and decision‑making
• Track record of improving system reliability and scalability through architectural improvements, performance optimization, and infrastructure enhancements
• Proven experience building scalable, resilient, secure, and maintainable products and systems that run reliably in production
• Strong understanding of agent architectures, workflow orchestration, retrieval‑augmented generation, vector databases, and knowledge graph integration
• Ability to collaborate deeply across teams and co‑create solutions with engineers, product managers, and domain experts
• Experience mentoring engineers and helping others grow in AI, LLM, and agent‑based system design
• A history of delivering measurable business outcomes from AI systems
• Strong competency in distributed systems, service design, performance optimization, and reliability engineering

Nice to Have

• Experience building advanced Generative AI capabilities including domain‑tuned LLMs, vector reasoning techniques, or specialized retrieval architectures
• Experience with insurance, financial services, or other regulated industries
• Experience deploying AI components in Java ecosystems including Spring AI, LangChain4j, or Embabel
• Background in document intelligence, fraud or anomaly modeling, or complex ontology and knowledge graph design
• Familiarity with AI safety practices, evaluation frameworks, monitoring, and regulatory compliance
• Ability to effectively communicate complex technical topics to senior leadership and non‑technical stakeholders

Who You Are

• A collaborative engineer who works well with cross‑functional partners and supports the growth of those around you.
• A hands‑on builder who ships reliable, scalable, production‑grade systems rather than stopping at proof of concept.
• Someone who understands how to design systems that scale smoothly, recover gracefully, and operate reliably under load.
• An innovative thinker who explores new approaches, tools, and architectures and applies them thoughtfully.
• A natural mentor who enjoys helping others develop AI, LLM, and agentic workflow skills.
• A systems thinker who can connect LLMs, vector search, agents, and knowledge graphs into cohesive solutions.
• Driven by real‑world impact, customer value, and long‑term engineering excellence.

Why Join GEICO

Build the next generation of AI‑powered enterprise workflows and intelligent automation.

Work on high‑impact problems at large operational scale.

Collaborate with a talented engineering organization focused on advancing AI capabilities.

Set the standard for responsible and production‑grade AI deployment across the enterprise.

Mentor and inspire future AI builders across the company.

Annual Salary $110,000.00 - $230,000.00 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.

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.

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.

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