IPS is recruiting for the #1 insurtech software platform in the world - the Salesforce for insurance. Founded in 1983 and backed by H&F (Hellman & Friedman) for over 10 years, our client serves nearly 20,000 insurance agencies across the personal, property & casualty, commercial, and employee benefits markets. With 3,000 employees globally and roughly 1,700 in engineering and product, they've been hitting their goals for 5+ consecutive years. This is a software company - not an insurance company.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Our client is making a massive, well-resourced investment in transforming how their 1,700+ engineers build software - not through hype, but through practical, repeatable, measurable AI-first engineering. The goal is responsible, cohesive adoption: 2-3x cycle time improvements, dramatically fewer defects escaping to production,

and reusable patterns that scale across the organization.

Principal AI Engineers (the AI First team) will be embedded directly in lighthouse engineering teams as hands-on player-coaches - not architects writing docs, not platform builders working in isolation. The mission: prove AI-first patterns in real teams, codify them, and scale them.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

• AI-First Development in Practice: Accelerate code generation, refactoring, debugging, and documentation discovery. Establish repeatable prompt + workflow patterns. Drive real adoption - not experiments.
• Workflow Redesign (The Core Job): Redesign how engineering teams work: break down stories differently, shift testing left, automate testing, remove bottlenecks.
• Test & Quality Automation: Replace manual testing with AI-generated unit, integration, and regression coverage. Directly reduce defects escaping to production.
• Agents & Tooling: Build or leverage lightweight agents and MCP-style tool integrations. Enable AI to retrieve context and take real actions. Practical use cases only - no over-engineering.
• Teach and Mentor at Scale: Mentor engineers in real time. Codify patterns, playbooks, and golden paths into reusable company-wide skills - not isolated wins.

HARD REQUIREMENTS

• 15+ years in software engineering at the staff or principal level (10-11+ considered with rapid trajectory: senior to staff to principal)
• Has personally embedded AI into engineering team workflows - shipped and measurable outcomes (cycle time, defect rate, test coverage) - not strategy or governance
• Scope beyond DevEx: impact across full software delivery - cycle time, quality, workflow redesign - not just CI/CD pipelines or developer tooling
• Enterprise execution experience - has influenced adoption across teams in a complex, matrixed organization without direct authority
• Hands-on builder: actively coding, testing, and shipping - not primarily advisory or managerial
• Experience with agentic workflows and/or RAG/retrieval systems in production (not POC or research)
• Authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship

NICE TO HAVES

• Pragmatic, outcome-oriented - obsessed with eliminating waste, not chasing hype
• Cross-functional influence across Engineering, Product, Architecture, Platform, and leadership
• Pattern-building: codifying reusable playbooks and golden paths at scale
• Experience with C#, Golang, or enterprise-scale legacy codebases
• Familiarity with MCP-style APIs, RAG vs. API retrieval tradeoffs, and LLM evaluation
• Prior player-coach experience: building and teaching simultaneously across multiple teams

WHY THIS ROLE STANDS OUT

• Greenfield build at enterprise scale - creating the AI First function from scratch with CTO + CAIO sponsorship and meaningful resources
• Organization-wide impact: your work influences how all 1,700+ engineers build software - not one team, not one product
• World-class leadership: Nate Wiger built Amazon's entire San Diego engineering office; Keith Olson is taking the company into its next chapter
• Stability you can count on: H&F-backed for 10+ years, crushing goals for 5+ consecutive years, family-first culture, no micromanagement
• Best of both worlds: startup-level mission and excitement, enterprise-level resources - without VC chaos or corporate stagnation

CULTURE & BENEFITS

• Family-First Culture: They have maintained a people-first culture through 10+ years of PE ownership.
• Leadership actively protects work-life balance - this is not a grind culture.
• No Micromanagement: Engineers are trusted to own their work. Nate Wiger's leadership philosophy: clear expectations, strong support, and autonomy to execute.
• Stability & Momentum: 5+ consecutive years of hitting goals. No chaos, no pivots. This is a company that knows what it's doing and is investing heavily to keep winning.
• Remote-First: Fully remote role. Core collaboration hours are Central Time. The culture supports distributed, async-first work.
• Resources to Win: AI First is a board-level strategic priority. Engineers have access to the best tools, models, and infrastructure without bureaucratic friction.
• Career Growth: The patterns you build here will influence how thousands of engineers work - a genuinely resume-defining opportunity at enterprise scale.

BENEFITS SUMMARY

• Medical: Choice of BCBS Illinois plans (HDHP + PPO) or Kaiser (CA). All plans cover 100% of preventive care. The company contributes $750/$1,250 (individual/family) to HSA annually with the HDHP plan. Employee-only bi-weekly premiums from $80.
• Dental & Vision: Delta Dental covers 100% of preventive care; major/restorative services are shared cost. VSP vision covers annual eye exams and eyewear.
• Life & Disability: Company-paid life insurance equal to the greater of $50,000 or 1x base salary (up to $200K). Company-paid short-term disability (60% pay, up to $2,000/week) and long-term disability (60% pay, up to $15,000/month).
• 401(k): Company matches up to 30% on the first 10% of contributions (up to 3% of annual earnings). 100% vested in the company match after three years of service.
• Time Off: Vacation accrual based on years of service, plus sick leave, company holidays, floating holidays, and a paid birthday day off.
• Additional FSA/HSA options, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with 24/7 confidential counseling, and voluntary accident and critical illness coverage.

If you are interested in this role, please apply here or send your resume to brie@integritypowersearch.com.