Lead AI Engineer

Western National Group & Umialik Insurance • Edina, MN

13d • Hybrid

About The Position

Western National Insurance Group 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.

Requirements

• 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.

Nice To Haves

• 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.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Benefits

• 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 251-500 employees