AI Engineer

About the role

AI Engineer

Location: San Francisco

ABOUT PATHWORK

Pathwork is redesigning life & health insurance jobs for the AI age. We believe the 2.5M professionals in the $1T life and health insurance industry don’t need better tools; they need a new operating system.

We’ve already proven it:

- 100+ top brokerages and national carriers use Pathwork

- Active pilots with multiple top-10 insurance companies

- 150%+ QoQ growth, every quarter since launch

Built from day one as AI-native, Pathwork uses agentic orchestration, structured data pipelines, predictive models, and generative AI to transform insurance distribution—bringing speed, structure, and intelligence to outdated workflows.

WHY JOIN US

- Category-defining product already in use by national brokerages and insurers

- $3.75M in funding from top VCs

- Deep founder experience: Work closely with experienced founders who’ve built and scaled companies from zero to IPO in insurance and AI

- Scenic, focused, intentional: Work from the Presidio in SF or our Domino Park office in Brooklyn—spaces built for walking meetings, deep work, and ambitious thinking.

- Early team, deep ownership, real impact: You’ll shape the systems, the stack, and the trajectory of the product.

- High-trust & Long-term oriented: Grow with a team that values trust, authenticity, learning, and lasting impact. Your contributions will help shape our product, culture, and the long-term legacy of the company.

OUR STACK

Python · TypeScript · Node.js · FastAPI · Postgres · Qdrant · LangGraph · Whisper · AWS (Lambda, EC2, ECS, S3) · Terraform · React · Next.js

ABOUT THE ROLE

We’re hiring an AI engineer, a full-stack, strategic builder who can take a large project from a working prototype to an industry-defining product. You’ll lead development of our agentic AI systems, owning model orchestration, retrieval, real-time inference, evaluation, and production infrastructure, and collaborating closely with the founding team on product and technical strategy.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN

- Build the engine: Design and own end-to-end agentic systems—retrieval, orchestration, inference, eval, and feedback loops

- Scale the stack: Shape our architecture across model interfaces, data pipelines, vector DBs, and streaming infrastructure

- Ship fast: Partner with product and design to prototype, test, and launch AI-driven features that deliver real value

- Improve performance: Continuously optimize accuracy, latency, and robustness through fine-tuning, eval frameworks, and data iteration

- Learn from the field: Join sales and customer calls to understand real-world pain points, pressure-test features, and translate feedback into product improvements

- Support growth: Build infrastructure and tools that help the whole company move faster—debugging, observability, agent testing

- Build your team: Hire, mentor, and collaborate with engineers who care about craft, velocity, and real-world impact

YOU MIGHT BE A FIT IF YOU...

- Have 5–10 years of experience building AI or ML-powered systems, ideally in high-growth or early-stage environments

- Have shipped real products that use LLMs, retrieval, orchestration, or streaming inference—not just prototypes

- Think full-stack, end-to-end: You’re comfortable moving between modeling, infra, and product-facing code

- Have an entrepreneurial mindset and thrive on building from scratch—systems, processes, tools, and the team

- Can explain complex ideas clearly, especially to non-technical teammates, customers, and stakeholders

- Thrive in ambiguity and take ownership in fast-paced, high-trust environments

- Bonus: Experience with vertical software businesses or agentic AI systems

WHAT YOU’LL GET

- Competitive comp + meaningful equity

- Employee-centric benefits including:

- High 401(k( match and FSA program

- Modern, employer-paid health benefits designed to support you on your terms

- Real ownership, autonomy, and direct collaboration with the founders

- A chance to define a category and shape a product from scratch

- You'll work side-by-side with the founding team, shape our rituals, and help create the moments and memories that define our company.