Qumis . Qumis is a venture-backed AI startup building the most advanced platform for reading and interpreting insurance policies.
We’re hiring a Founding Staff AI Engineer to build production-grade AI powering core workflows. You’ll partner with the CTO and co-founders to design, implement, and own every part of our AI pipeline—from unstructured document ingestion to interactive LLM outputs that shape legal-grade decisions. This is a product-critical role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, ships fast, and is the technical owner of a new AI stack in a real-world, high-stakes domain.
What You’ll Do
Build and ship production AI features end-to-end—from R&D to SaaS integration, observability, and iteration
Design and deploy advanced document understanding systems, including RAG pipelines, clause segmentation, summarization, risk detection, and more
Create scalable APIs that deliver real-time coverage analysis, comparisons, and recommendations inside a modern SaaS UI
Engineer robust data workflows across OCR, PDF ingestion, parsing, normalization, and embedding generation
Own evaluation and observability, from automated accuracy pipelines to human-in-the-loop systems that maintain trust and reliability
Design for explainability—develop transparent workflows that help legal, claims, and compliance professionals understand what the AI sees and says
Collaborate across disciplines with designers, PMs, and domain experts to translate insurance workflows into AI-powered systems
Set technical direction—you’ll shape our infra, tooling, and AI product roadmap from the ground up
What We’re Looking For
This role blends the ambition of a research scientist, the urgency of a product engineer, and the ownership of a founder. You’ll be our first AI hire, helping architect and scale our AI systems from the ground up. You should bring
most or all
of the following:
6–10+ years of experience building and deploying production machine learning systems, with a focus on NLP, document intelligence, or unstructured data
Strong track record shipping ML models into production—API design, observability, iteration, and scaling included
Deep experience with RAG pipelines, multi-step LLM workflows, and vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant)
Comfortable working with complex, messy documents (e.g., insurance policies, contracts), including parsing, OCR, clause-level segmentation, and normalization
Strong software engineering background, with experience in fullstack dev, containerization (Docker), and DevOps/MLOps best practices
Ability to design secure, compliant systems in regulated environments (insurance, legal, healthcare, or finance)
Experience architecting agentic workflows and AI-native products that go beyond simple chatbot interfaces
Product-first mindset—you build models to solve real user pain, and love working closely with cross-functional teams
Operates like a founder—driven, hands-on, scrappy, and thrives in fast-paced, zero-to-one environments with extreme ownership
Why Join Qumis
Backed by top-tier venture capital funds including Armory Square Ventures, MTech Capital, Grand Ventures, and Alumni Ventures, and strategic angels in AI and insurance
Used and loved by leading brokerages and claims teams to transform how work gets done
Shape the future of how generative AI transforms one of the world’s most complex, critical industries
High-ownership role on a high-standards founding team with grit, urgency, and big ambition
Build a generational company—the kind of opportunity that only comes once in a career
We’ve Got You Covered
We offer a comprehensive benefits package so you can choose what’s best for you and your family. Our benefits include:
Medical, dental, and vision insurance with premium coverage options
Life Insurance (company-paid), plus supplemental options, short- and long-term disability insurance, pre-tax FSA and HSA options, and pre-tax commuter benefits
Unlimited PTO & $1,000 home office setup stipend
Hybrid work environment: 1–2 days/week in our Chicago office
Professional development support and growth opportunities
Compensation Range: $150K - $250K
Seniority level
Mid-Senior level
Employment type
Full-time
Job function
Engineering and Information Technology
Industries: Software Development