Distinguished Engineer, Applied AI

GEICO • Palo Alto, CA

3d

About The Position

We are seeking a Distinguished Engineer to lead our CRM AI team. In this role, you will drive the technical direction, architecture, and execution of our CRM roadmap powered by LLM models and Agentic AI. The ideal candidate has deep technical expertise in building AI products and can cultivate a high-performance culture, foster strong cross-functional relationships, and effectively manage technical teams in a fast-paced, startup-like environment. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned engineering leader who thrives in a dynamic environment and is passionate about scaling teams and advancing AI capabilities that empower customer experiences. You will help drive our CRM platform transformation as we shift from a traditional system of record to an AI-powered system of intelligence and action, championing engineering excellence while co-creating a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. You will lead the foundational work in the evolution of our CRM platform that enables proactive identification of churn and risk, systematic reduction in cost to serve, consistency of service quality, scalable application of AI, and enterprise-grade resilience with 99.99% availability across multi-region active-active infrastructure. Our team thrives and succeeds in delivering high quality technology products and services in a hyper-growth environment where priorities shift quickly.

Requirements

• Advanced programming experience with at least two modern languages such as Java, C++, Python, or C# including object-oriented design
• Proficient with AI/ML stack and libraries; experience in shipping applied AI products including LLM-based systems, agentic frameworks, or conversational AI
• Proven understanding of micro-services oriented architecture and extensible REST APIs
• Experience building architecture and design (design patterns, reliability, scalability) of new and current systems
• Experience designing and operating highly available systems (99.9%+ uptime) with multi-region deployments and operational automation
• Experience with continuous delivery and infrastructure as code
• Strong problem-solving ability
• Ability to excel in a fast-paced, startup-like environment
• Knowledge of developer tooling across the software development life cycle (task management, source code, building, deployment, operations, real-time communication)
• In-depth knowledge of CS data structures and algorithms
• Exemplary ability to design, perform experiments, and influence engineering direction and product roadmap
• Experience partnering with engineering teams and transferring research to production
• 12+ years of experience working as a technical software engineering leader
• 5+ years applied AI/ML experience, with exposure to LLMs or generative AI
• 10+ years of experience with architecture and design
• 6+ years of experience with AWS, GCP, Azure, or another cloud service
• 6+ years of experience in CICD deployments and infrastructure as code
• 6+ years of experience in open-source frameworks
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent education or work experience

Nice To Haves

• Track record of technical thought leadership through publications, blogs, open-source contributions, or patents (preferred)
• Experience with Salesforce or enterprise CRM platforms is a plus

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural decisions for Agent Workspace, Knowledge Management, Customer Insights platform, and core CRM AI capabilities
• Define and implement multi-region active-active infrastructure to achieve 99.99% availability, removing single-region failure exposure
• Establish engineering standards and operational excellence practices for observability, auto-failover, self-healing systems, and SLA management
• Mentor Staff and Senior Engineers, elevating technical capabilities across AI/ML, distributed systems, and operational excellence while establishing engineering standards for the organization
• Drive incident response and blameless post-mortems, turning outages into systemic improvements
• Scope, design, and build scalable, resilient distributed systems
• Build product definition and leverage technical depth to drive toward the right architectural solutions
• Engage in cross-functional collaboration throughout the entire software lifecycle, partnering with AI research, product, infrastructure, and Microsoft/AWS teams
• Lead by example by sharing best practices, measuring outcomes, demonstrating adaptability, and sponsoring continuous learning across teams
• Work in a team environment utilizing AI and ML to streamline the CRM platform work

Benefits

• Great Company: At GEICO, we help our customers through life’s twists and turns. Our mission is to protect people when they need it most and we’re constantly evolving to stay ahead of their needs. We’re an iconic brand that thrives on innovation, exceeding our customers’ expectations and enabling our collective success. From day one, you’ll take on exciting challenges that help you grow and collaborate with dynamic teams who want to make a positive impact on people’s lives.
• Great Careers: We offer a career where you can learn, grow, and thrive through personalized development programs, created with your career – and your potential – in mind. You’ll have access to industry leading training, certification assistance, career mentorship and coaching with supportive leaders at all levels.
• Great Culture: We foster an inclusive culture of shared success, rooted in integrity, a bias for action and a winning mindset. Grounded by our core values, we have an an established culture of caring, inclusion, and belonging, that values different perspectives. Our teams are led by dynamic, multi-faceted teams led by supportive leaders, driven by performance excellence and unified under a shared purpose. As part of our culture, we also offer employee engagement and recognition programs that reward the positive impact our work makes on the lives of our customers.
• Great Rewards: We offer compensation and benefits built to enhance your physical well-being, mental and emotional health and financial future. Comprehensive Total Rewards program that offers personalized coverage tailor-made for you and your family’s overall well-being. Financial benefits including market-competitive compensation; a 401K savings plan vested from day one that offers a 6% match; performance and recognition-based incentives; and tuition assistance. Access to additional benefits like mental healthcare as well as fertility and adoption assistance. Supports flexibility- We provide workplace flexibility as well as our GEICO Flex program, which offers the ability to work from anywhere in the US for up to four weeks per year.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level