Software Engineer, Applied AI
What We DoShepherd is an AI-native commercial insurance platform transforming how high-hazard industries get covered. Our mission is to make risk frictionless for the builders and operators shaping the physical world — protecting progress from concept through construction and into decades of operation.The infrastructure behind the AI boom — data centers, semiconductor fabs, renewable energy assets — has to be built and insured. But traditional carriers weren't built for this speed:Complex commercial construction projects routinely wait weeks for a single quoteLegacy carriers rely on static applications and disconnected systemsBrokers chase carriers through calls, emails, and resubmissionsWe built Shepherd to solve that. Our AI performs the same underwriting workflows in seconds, and integrates real-time data from construction technology partners — Procore, Autodesk, OpenSpace, DroneDeploy, and others — to see risk as it actually exists, not just as it was reported on a static form.We're pursuing the most ambitious technical vision in commercial insurance: fully autonomous underwriting. We're closing in on the first fully agentic submission in the industry — email in, price out, no human intervention until the last mile.With Shepherd, safety, speed, and quality no longer trade off against one another — they compound. We're building:Faster decisionsSmarter, more accurate pricingBetter risk outcomes for insureds who invest in safer practicesWe're not just modernizing insurance products. We're building the risk infrastructure for the next generation of financial services.Our InvestorsIn March 2026, Shepherd raised a $42M Series B — bringing total funding to over $60M — led by Intact Private Capital, the investment arm of one of the largest insurers in the world. Intact is not only our lead investor but also a carrier partner, a testament to the confidence the incumbent industry has in what we're building. Our investors:Intact Private CapitalSpark CapitalCostanoa VenturesY CombinatorSusa VenturesAnd several othersOur TeamWe're a team of technologists and insurance enthusiasts, bridging the two worlds together. Check out our About page to learn more.The RoleWe are hiring a Software Engineer focused on Applied AI to build intelligent systems that directly power our underwriting and pricing engine. This role sits at the intersection of product engineering, AI infrastructure, and real-world insurance workflows.You will design and ship production AI systems that meaningfully improve how we evaluate risk, price policies, and operate our business.What You’ll DoPartner with product, engineering, underwriting, and data teams to identify high-leverage AI opportunitiesDesign, build, and deploy LLM-powered features across underwriting, pricing, and internal toolingDevelop AI agents and retrieval-augmented systems that extract structured insights from unstructured insurance dataBuild production-grade AI infrastructure for model serving, inference, evaluation, and monitoringCreate internal AI tools that enable underwriters and operators to move faster with higher quality decisionsEstablish best practices for prompt engineering, evaluation frameworks, and model reliabilityOwn AI features end-to-end from ideation to productionWhat We’re Looking ForStrong backend engineering experience building scalable APIs and distributed systemsHands-on experience shipping AI-powered products into productionFamiliarity with LLMs, RAG architectures, embeddings, and vector databasesExperience integrating AI systems into user-facing or workflow-driven applicationsComfort with cloud infrastructure and deploying AI workloads at scaleA product mindset and the ability to translate ambiguous business problems into concrete AI systemsYou have at least 5+ years of working experience (preferably as a full-stack engineer) with a track record of delivering high-impact productsBonus PointsExperience building AI agents or multi-step reasoning systemsBackground in applied machine learning beyond generative AIExperience with pricing systems, financial infrastructure, or risk modelingInterest in transforming legacy industries with modern AI systemsWhy This Role MattersInsurance is one of the largest industries in the world, yet much of underwriting and pricing remains manual and fragmented. At Shepherd, AI is not a side project – it is core to how we build durable competitive advantage.You will help define how applied AI transforms risk evaluation in high-hazard industries and shape the future of AI-native insurance infrastructure.Our Tech StackFrontendReact & Next.jsTypescriptGraphQL w/ ApolloBackendNode.jsPostgres & RedisTypescriptGraphQL APIsBenefits🏥 Premium Healthcare100% contribution to top-tier health, dental, and vision🥕 Fertility benefits and family building support🏖️ Unlimited PTOFlexibility to take the time off, recharge, and perform🥗 Daily lunches, dinners, and snacksWe work together, and enjoy meals together too🖥️ SF, NYC, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago and LA Offices📚 Professional DevelopmentAccess to premium coaching, including leadership development🏦 Competitive 401(k) Plan🐶 Dog-friendly officePlenty of dogs to play with and make friends with in the SF officeCompensation Range: $170K - $220K