AI Engineering Lead

Role Description

We are hiring a founding AI Engineer Lead to build and scale AI capabilities from the ground up. This role will directly shape how AI is built and delivered across the organization. This is a hands-on engineering role responsible for designing, building, and deploying production AI solutions (copilots, agents, and automated workflows) that directly improve workflows, decision-making, and operational efficiency. Initial solutions will be built primarily in the Microsoft ecosystem (Azure, Copilot, and related tooling) to align to existing enterprise infrastructure. This role will also evaluate when more flexible, scalable, or custom AI systems are needed to ensure long-term flexibility and scalability.

The AI Engineering Lead will own development of critical AI systems while establishing technical patterns, tools, standards, and architecture for how we apply AI in the enterprise. This role will work closely with business stakeholders, product leaders, and data teams to turn high-value opportunities into reliable, production-ready solutions. The AI Engineering Lead will write production code, deliver high-impact solutions, and define how AI gets built across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and Deliver AI Solutions
  • Design, build, and deploy production-grade end-to-end AI solutions, including workflow automation agents, RAG pipelines, and copilots embedded in business workflows, and LLM-driven applications.
  • Translate business needs into technical designs and working products to deliver usable, high-impact solutions, not just proofs of concept.
  • Architect and implement AI-assisted data workflows and agentic systems.
  • Build and maintain LLM-enabled services, prompt frameworks, and coding standards.
  • Develop semantic/context layers ensuring AI outputs align with business logic and data models.
  • Design multi-agent workflows, including human-in-the-loop controls.
  • Make pragmatic tradeoffs to ship quickly while maintaining long-term sustainability.
• Technical Design and Architecture
  • Create scalable patterns for prompt design & orchestration, agent-based workflows, and API integrations & data access.
  • Inform architecture decisions for AI systems balancing speed, security, scalability, maintainability, and cost.
  • Help establish engineering standards and best practices for applied AI across the organization.
  • Establish reusable components, frameworks, and templates to accelerate AI development.
  • Integrate AI automation with enterprise systems, APIs, and data platforms.
  • Evaluate and recommend tooling across the stack (models, frameworks, vector stores, orchestration layers).
  • Define data requirements and, when needed, build or extend data pipelines to ensure AI systems have reliable, production-ready inputs.
• Quality, Reliability, and Production Operations
  • Design and implement evaluation frameworks to define and track AI system performance, including task success, accuracy, latency, cost, and business impact; establish feedback loops to continuously improve quality, reliability, and cost-efficacy in production environments.
  • Build guardrails and validation layers to reduce hallucinations, enforce structured outputs, and ensure safe system behavior.
  • Establish monitoring and observability across AI systems (performance, usage, cost, latency, failure modes).
  • Implement modern engineering practices including CI/CD, versioning, rollback strategies, and automated testing.
  • Ensure solutions meet security, compliance, and governance requirements in a regulated environment.
• Cross-Functional Delivery and Adoption
  • Partner with business leaders, operations & service teams, and product stakeholders to shape use cases and turn them into working solutions.
  • Work closely with AI Enablement to refine workflows and improve adoption.
  • Drive fast iteration cycles, quickly moving from idea to working solution to scaled implementation; iterate solutions based on real user feedback and usage patterns.

Qualifications

• 7-10+ years in software engineering, data engineering, or AI/LLM experience.
• Hands-on experience building and deploying production AI systems.
• Hands-on experience building applications using LLMs and modern AI tooling.
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred), Python, APIs, containerization, and CI/CD practices.
• Experience building RAG pipelines, agent-based workflows, or orchestration layers.
• Experience with vector databases, embedding pipelines, and retrieval systems.
• Strong problem-solving ability and bias toward practical, efficient solutions; ability to operate in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment.
• Experience translating business needs into technical solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Experience implementing evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and observability for AI systems.
• Experience working in regulated industries (insurance, financial services, healthcare).
• Exposure to full-stack development (frontend + backend) for delivering usable AI experiences.

Salary Range

$147,000 — $220,000 USD

Compensation & Benefits

Being a part of IMA has its benefits. When you become part of the IMA family, you become eligible to take part in our valuable benefits and rewards package designed to benefit you, your family, and your life. Our plans are cost-effective, convenient and provide progressive ways for staying healthy, protecting loved ones, pursuing financial security and living a full and balanced life. This role is eligible for the following:

• Annual Performance Bonus
• Stock Purchase
• Medical Plans
• Prescription Drugs
• Dental
• Vision
• Family Assistance Program
• FSA
• HSA
• Pre-Tax Parking Plan
• 401(k)
• Life/AD&D
• Accident
• Critical Illness
• Hospital Indemnity
• Long Term Care
• Short-term Disability
• Long-term Disability
• Business Travel Accident
• Identity Theft
• Paid Time Off
• Flexible Work Options
• Paid Holidays
• Sabbatical
• Gift Matching
• Well-Being Stipend
• Personal and Professional Development

Why Join IMA?

We’ve built a reputation for putting our associates first. What if we told you that you could be an integral part of an entrepreneurial, expanding company, develop lasting relationships, earn competitive benefits, plus claim part ownership? It’s this unique ownership business model that makes working at IMA so appealing.

We work in teams. We sell in teams. We win and prosper as a team. We provide support systems and resources that enable each of our associates to focus on what they do best. And as an independent company based in the Midwest, we’re big enough to write business all over the world and small enough to implement your ideas quickly.

We are recognized nationally as a leader in our industry:

• 2020-2023 Business Insurance Magazine Best Places to Work in Insurance
• 2023 Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces
• 2023 Denver Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
• 2022-2023 Connecticut Top Work Places
• 2021-2023 Inc. 5000’s List of Fastest Growing Companies
• 2019-2022 Civic 50 Colorado Honoree Recognizing 50 Most Community-Minded Companies
• 2022-2023 Kansas City Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
• 2021-2023 Charlotte Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
• 2021-2023 Los Angeles Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
• 2021-2023 The Salt Lake City Tribune Top Work Places
• 2021-2022 Puget Sound Business Journal’s Washington’s Best Workplaces
• 2021-2022 Wichita Business Journal’s Best Places to Work, #1 in extra-large category
• 2021 Dallas Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
• 2021 Alaska Journal of Commerce’s Best Workplaces in Alaska

This Job Description is not a complete statement of all duties and responsibilities comprising this position.

The IMA Financial Group, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, The IMA Financial Group, Inc. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.