AI Engineer III

Workforce Classification: Telecommuter Join Our Team: Do Meaningful Work and Improve People’s Lives Our purpose, to improve customers’ lives by making healthcare work better, is far from ordinary. And so are our employees. Working at Premera means you have the opportunity to drive real change by transforming healthcare. Premera is committed to being a workplace where people feel empowered to grow, innovate, and lead with purpose. By investing in our employees and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous development, we’re able to better serve our customers. It’s this commitment that has earned us recognition as one of the best companies to work for. Learn more about our recent awards and recognitions as a greatest workplace. Learn how Premera supports our members, customers and the communities that we serve through our Healthsource blog: As an AI Engineer III, you will work within a team responsible for taking AI/ML solutions from initial concept to full production implementation. Your role involves guiding AI-driven solutions for complex business problems through robust system design, modeling, and coding with focus on multi-agent architectures and knowledge-augmented retrieval. You will collaborate cross-functionally to ideate and prototype new AI products using modern orchestration patterns. Your models, architectures, and software contributions will power innovative AI systems that solve complex problems at scale. To excel in this role, you will need hands-on experience rapidly developing and deploying AI systems alongside strong software engineering skills implementing agent communication protocols and graph-augmented retrieval systems. This will be a virtual/telecommuter position, working from home. What you’ll do: Develop comprehensive multi-agent systems and frameworks for AI applications and products using orchestration patterns like manager/worker and peer collaboration. Develop prototypes and production-ready AI products to validate AI/ML solutions implementing GraphRAG and knowledge-augmented retrieval. Develop, tune, and productionize AI systems using cloud resources such as Azure AI Foundry, Kubernetes, custom vector database deployments, and Cognitive Services. Contribute to development of robust data pipelines for knowledge graph construction, entity extraction, and graph-based retrieval systems. Develop specifications context governance, prompt versioning, and agent evaluation frameworks to deploy AI models and incorporate them into applications. Supervise deployed AI systems using comprehensive instrumentation and observability to guarantee consistent model accuracy, retrieval quality, and agent behavior monitoring. Actively participate in a team that exercises principled, agile-like development practices. Create and maintain thorough documentation that is consistent with team procedures, corporate policies, and expectations. Ensure peer review on all assigned work as well as conduct peer reviews over the work of others as requested. Keep abreast of new tools and concepts through reading documentation or literature and actively practicing skills development. Support and participate in meetings with external stakeholders. What you’ll bring: Required Qualifications Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field, or 2+ years of experience in a related, professional IT/analytics position. Minimum of 3 years of industry experience in developing, deploying, and maintaining AI or ML systems. Up to 2 years of industry experience may be substituted with an AI centered Master’s/PhD Degree or AI Engineering certifications. Preferred Qualifications At least 3 years of experience in developing complex multi-agent systems using frameworks like Microsoft’s Agent Framework, LangChain/LangGraph, or custom orchestration. Previous experience with GraphRAG implementation and knowledge graph constructions from unstructured text. Experience with advanced retrieval techniques including cross-encoder re-ranking and fusion methods beyond RRF. Certifications in agent development frameworks or demonstrable contributions to open-source agent projects. Minimum of 3 years of experience in successfully productionizing AI models, including constructing scalable data pipelines and establishing comprehensive monitoring systems. At least 1 year of experience instrumenting multi-agent AI systems with OpenTelemetry and Semantic Convention standards, including distributed tracing across agent communications, tool calls, and LLM interactions for observability, debugging, and compliance. 3 or more years working within Agile-like teams and environments. Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Expert proficiency in multi-agent orchestration patterns and workflows. Deep understanding of GraphRAG and knowledge graph augmentation techniques. Ability to implement advanced fusion methods and cross-encoder re-ranking. Proficiency with agent communication protocols (A2A, MCP) at scale. Experience with agent evaluation frameworks and benchmarks (AgentBench, HELM). Advanced prompt engineering including iterative refinement and critique loops. Ability to design and implement production guardrails and safety systems. Knowledge of vector database scaling strategies and optimization. Experience with distributed agent systems and message brokers. Proficiency in implementing agent observability and distributed tracing. Understanding of token optimization and context window management. Experience with continuous indexing pipelines and embedding updates. Physical Requirements The following have been identified as essential physical requirements of this job and must be performed with or without an accommodation: This is primarily a sedentary role which requires the ability to exert up to 10 lbs. of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects, including the human body. This role requires the ability to keyboard and to communicate clearly and understandably in person and over the telephone. Premera total rewards Our comprehensive total rewards package provides support, resources, and opportunities to help employees thrive and grow. Our total rewards are more than a collection of perks, they're a reflection of our commitment to your health and well-being. We offer a broad array of rewards including physical, financial, emotional, and community benefits, including: Medical, vision, and dental coverage with low employee premiums. Voluntary benefit offerings, including pet insurance for paw parents. Life and disability insurance. Retirement programs, including a 401K employer match and, believe it or not, a pension plan that is vested after 3 years of service. Wellness incentives with a wide range of mental well-being resources for you and your dependents, including counseling services, stress management programs, and mindfulness programs, just to name a few. Generous paid time off to reenergize. Looking for continuing education? We have tuition assistance for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Employee recognition program to celebrate anniversaries, team accomplishments, and more. For our hybrid employees, our on-campus model provides flexibility to create your own routine with access to on-site resources, networking opportunities, and team engagement. Commuter perks make your trip to work less impactful on the environment and your wallet. Free convenient on-site parking. Subsidized on-campus cafes make lunchtime connections with colleagues fun and affordable. Participate in engaging on-site activities such as health and wellness events, coffee connects, disaster preparedness fairs and more. Our complementary fitness & well-being center offers both in-person and virtual workouts and nutritional counseling. Need a brain break? Challenge someone to a game of shuffleboard or ping pong while on campus. Equal employment opportunity/affirmative action: Premera is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Premera seeks to attract and retain the most qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, genetic information or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. If you need an accommodation to apply online for positions at Premera, please contact Premera Human Resources via email at View email address on click.appcast.io or via phone at View phone number on click.appcast.io. Premera is hiring in the following states, with some limitations based on role or city: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin. The pay for this role will vary based on a range of factors including, but not limited to, a candidate’s geographic location, market conditions, and specific skills and experience. The salary range for this role is posted below; we generally target up to and around the midpoint of the range. National Salary Range: $118,900.00 - $202,100.00 National Plus Salary Range: $135,600.00 - $230,500.00 *National Plus salary range is used in higher cost of labor markets including Western Washington and Alaska. We’re happy to discuss compensation further during the interview because we believe that open communication leads to better outcomes for all. We’re committed to creating an environment where all employees are celebrated for their unique skills and contributions.