Applied AI Engineer

Applied AI Engineer

At Drata, we help companies earn and keep the trust of their users, customers, partners, and prospects. We're the proof layer that shows great companies deserve the trust they aim to build.

We live our values every day. Built on Trust means consistency is everything. Act with Integrity by always doing the right thing. Being Customer-Obsessed keeps the people we serve at the center of our work. Competitive Fire drives us to push ourselves harder than anyone else. Diversity brings unique perspectives that lead to better solutions. Automation First ensures we save time and money by making efficiency a priority.

At Drata, we're not just building software - we're building a mindset. Everything we do springs from:

• Be a Driver (Owner‑Operator Mentality): Own your work. Improve relentlessly. Deliver results.
• Move at Drata Speed (Precision & Velocity): Fast decisions. Quick learning. Immediate impact.
• Stay Mission-Driven (Customer‑Obsessed): Challenge assumptions. Deliver value. Stay hungry.

We pair that high-velocity culture with a thoughtful hybrid model because we believe flexibility and collaboration both matter. That's why in the Bay we come together in-office Tuesday through Thursday our high‑impact collaboration days where teams align, strategize, and innovate. Mondays and Fridays are flexible, giving you space for focused work, balance, and autonomy.

If you thrive when you're empowered, energized, and working with smart, mission-driven people, you'll feel at home here.

Drata is seeking an Applied AI Engineer to drive the quality and effectiveness of our AI systems through rigorous experimentation, evaluation, and applied research.

This is a research-focused role emphasizing experimentation and rigor over production engineering. You'll own the science behind how Drata's AI products retrieve, reason, and respond — and you'll work closely with AI and Software Engineers to turn validated approaches into production-ready systems.

Drata's compliance platform is document-heavy: VRM Agent, AIQA, Trust Agent, policy-to-control mappers, and more all depend on high-quality information retrieval and reasoning.

Design and evaluate information access + reasoning strategies across RAG, agents, and classic ML: chunking, embedding models, hybrid search, metadata filtering, semantic routing

Prototype GenAI workflows (including agentic systems) that map and reason over compliance objects (controls ↔ risks ↔ requirements ↔ evidence)

Explore ML + probabilistic approaches where GenAI is not the best fit: classifiers, ranking models, graph/link prediction, calibration, and structured prediction

Build and maintain evaluation frameworks: golden datasets, automated quality metrics, regression detection

Implement and tune ranking/reranking systems: cross-encoders, LLM-based rerankers, learning-to-rank, custom scoring functions

Run experiments to validate hypotheses and quantify improvements before production rollout

Debug failure modes and build error taxonomies across retrieval, reasoning, and generation

Collaborate with AI and Software Engineers to hand off validated approaches for productionization

Stay current on applied research in RAG, agents, LLM evaluation, and relevance modeling; bring innovations into the product

3+ years of experience in applied research, data science, or ML with a focus on NLP, information retrieval, or knowledge systems

1+ years of hands-on experience building or contributing to production AI/ML systems

Strong foundation in information retrieval: dense and sparse retrieval, embedding models, search relevance

Experience with RAG systems: chunking strategies, vector databases, retrieval optimization

Proficiency in evaluation methodology: metrics design, golden dataset creation, A/B testing, statistical significance

Strong Python skills and comfort with notebook-driven research workflows

Experience communicating research findings to engineering teams and translating insights into actionable improvements

Experience with compliance, legal, or document-heavy domains

Publications or contributions in IR, NLP, or RAG evaluation

At Drata, our people are our strongest advantage—and we prove it with support that exceeds industry standards. Our total rewards package is designed to power your well-being, accelerate your growth, and keep your work-life balance thriving.

Shared Success: We provide stock equity to ensure that as the company grows, you share directly in that success. Equity gives every employee a sense of ownership and the opportunity to celebrate our wins together—because your contributions don't just support our progress; they help drive our collective success.

Health & Wellness: Up to 100% employer-paid premiums for medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their dependents, along with comprehensive wellness benefits and healthcare concierge services designed to support your needs beyond traditional insurance.

Financial Well-being: A comprehensive suite of financial benefits, including a 401(k) plan, company-paid life and disability insurance, tax-advantaged spending accounts, and a range of discounted voluntary offerings to help you customize and strengthen your overall financial position.

Family Support: We want to support you in life's most important moments, so we offer a paid Parental Leave policy, after six months of employment. Employees also receive access to Kindbody fertility and family-building benefits and dedicated leave specialists who help guide you through the entire process.

Growth & Development: Generous annual stipends for both professional and personal development, empowering you to invest in your continued growth. You'll also have access to a wide range of internal learning opportunities, ensuring you can build new skills, deepen your expertise, and advance your career with confidence.

Time Off & Flexibility: We believe that to do your best work, you should get the time you need for rest, rejuvenation and recovery. Drata offers a flexible vacation policy, paid holidays, and other perks to recharge.

This role will receive a competitive base salary, benefits, and stock, typically in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). The applicable salary range for this role is: $145,200 - $196,400.

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone's leveling and compensation–including a candidate's professional background and experience. These ranges may be modified in the future and final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed above.