Lead AI Engineer

Who are we?

Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers' property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southwestern United States. Known as “The Relationship Company®,” we define success as a measure of the relationships we’ve built over time. In everything that we do, we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. That’s the power of “nice”. At Western National, nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve.

Does this opportunity interest you?

Western National is seeking an AI Engineer IV to join our team!

The individual in this role will have the opportunity to design, develop, test, and deploy enterprise-grade generative AI solutions. This individual will define and mature a Generative AI-specific Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), including requirements definition, model evaluation, testing standards, deployment processes, and governance checkpoints.

The individual in this role will serve as a technical builder who transforms generative AI concepts into secure, scalable, production-ready systems that deliver measurable business value. 

What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role?

• Designs, builds, tests, and deploys generative AI-enabled applications and services.
• Writes production-quality code, prompts, evaluation scripts, and integration components.
• Integrates generative AI initiatives into established enterprise SDLC processes.
• Prepares and executes testing strategies for AI systems, including prompt testing and regression validation, model evaluation (accuracy, hallucination mitigation, bias detection, and toxicity review) and integration, performance, and security testing.
• Builds and maintains CI / CD pipelines and automated deployment workflows for AI services.
• Implements logging, monitoring, telemetry, and feedback loops for AI systems in production.
• Collaborates with product, security, legal, infrastructure, and architecture teams to ensure compliant and secure deployments.
• Creates and maintains documentation, including architecture diagrams, evaluation benchmarks, risk assessments, and operational runbooks.
• Ensures timely delivery of high-quality solutions while clearly communicating tradeoffs, risks, and constraints.
• Designs and implements solutions leveraging large language models (LLMs), embeddings, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and conversational AI frameworks.
• Builds secure integrations between AI services and enterprise systems (core platforms, APIs, document repositories, and data stores).
• Develops reusable foundational components, such as prompt frameworks and reusable templates, RAG pipelines and retrieval orchestration layers and guardrails, validation, and output verification layers.
• Optimizes model usage for cost, latency, reliability, and scalability.
• Implements human-in-the-loop validation and structured feedback capture mechanisms.
• Leads troubleshooting and resolution of AI-related production issues.
• Diagnoses failures related to prompts, retrieval pipelines, integrations, and model behavior.
• Drives automation of repetitive AI workflows and development processes.
• Makes independent technical judgment on architecture, tooling, deployment models, and SDLC enhancements for generative AI systems.
• Contributes to AI-related technical decisions across product teams and engineering leadership.
• Applies deep technical expertise to balance innovation with reliability and risk management.
• Evaluates tradeoffs between model providers and architectural patterns.
• Translates ambiguous AI use cases into concrete and deployable solutions within the SDLC.
• Identifies opportunities to improve operational efficiency and user experience using automation.
• Proactively identifies risks related to bias, hallucination, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• Consistently acts according to customer experience standards, including responsiveness, ownership, and clear communication.
• Designs AI systems that enhance internal productivity and improve user and business partner experiences through reliability, transparency, and measurable value delivery.

What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate?

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to independently deliver complex technical solutions.
• High attention to detail, particularly in model behavior, testing, and validation.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to rapidly learn and apply emerging technologies with minimal formal training.
• Advanced organizational skills and ability to manage multiple high-impact AI initiatives.
• Proven experience building and deploying production-grade applications.
• Demonstrated ability to define and implement engineering standards and quality controls.
• Ability to translate emerging AI capabilities into structured, repeatable SDLC practices.
• Demonstrated ability to prototype, evaluate, and iterate on solutions in ambiguous problem spaces.
• Advanced proficiency in Python (preferred) or Java / Spring.
• Experience with LLMs and prompt engineering and structured output techniques.
• Experience integrating services via APIs into enterprise systems.
• Knowledge of CI / CD pipelines, DevOps tooling, and cloud platforms.
• Experience with logging, monitoring, and observability frameworks.
• Bachelor of Science in computer science, data science, engineering, mathematics, or related field preferred; equivalent experience acceptable. 

What will our ideal candidate have?

• Experience implementing micro-service architecture. 
• Experience defining coding processes and standards.
• Experience building reusable coding frameworks.
• Ability to mentor others and elevate overall engineering maturity.

Compensation overview

The targeted hiring range for this role is $122,300 - $160,000, annually. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge, skills, credentials, and experience of each candidate, as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and / or may be considered for other positions.

Western National Insurance Group reserves the right to fill this position at a level below the level included in this posting.

Culture and Total Rewards

Western National has long been known as “The Relationship Company®” and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness, empowerment, and accountability, and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset. 

Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National has also been named a Top Workplace by the Star Tribune for consecutive years. In addition, the Group is consistently recognized as a Ward’s 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results.

Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package, including:

• Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits, including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more!
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions)
• Wellbeing Program, including onsite fitness studio
• Paid Time Off – including holiday, vacation, and volunteer
• 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education)
• Paid parental leave
• Bonus opportunities

Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment, which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual, job, department, and company needs. 

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

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