AI Engineer

San Francisco - Presidio on site Until 8/22/2026 5+ years exp First posted March 18, 2026 Last posted March 18, 2026
Job description

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predictive models, and generative AI to transform insurance distribution—bringing speed, structure, and intelligence to outdated workflows.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.

Compensation (from employer):
$175K – $275K • Offers Equity

About this role

Summary

Develop and deploy agentic AI systems, optimize performance, and collaborate with the team.

Job title

AI Engineer

Experience level

5–10 years

Minimum experience

5+ years exp

Industry

insurance

Location requirements

San Francisco; remote not specified

Salary

$175k–$275k

Management role

No

Skills & keywords

Required skills

PythonLLMsretrievalstreaming inferencemodel orchestration

Preferred skills

agentic AIhigh-growth environmentvertical software

Specializations

AIMLfull-stackmodel orchestrationinfrastructure
Locations

Structured locations inferred from the posting.

San Francisco, CA, USA

On-site City