Staff AI Software Engineer

📋 Description

• • As a Staff AI Software Engineer at Drata, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of how intelligent systems power trust-critical enterprise workflows. This is a unique opportunity to move beyond typical feature development and instead define the architectural foundation for AI across the entire company. You will be instrumental in making foundational decisions about what AI capabilities we build, how we rigorously measure their quality and performance, and where we strategically invest our resources.
• • Your responsibilities will span the entire AI lifecycle, from initial research and exploration through to robust production deployment. You will own these systems end-to-end, and your technical judgment will directly influence Drata's strategic technical direction in the AI space. This role is for an individual who thrives on deep technical challenges and desires to make a significant impact on a rapidly growing company.
• • You will operate at the cutting edge of AI technology, working at the intersection of Large Language Models (LLMs), sophisticated retrieval systems, agentic workflows, and the complex, real-world challenges of compliance. Close collaboration with product, platform, and security teams will be essential to build AI solutions that are not only powerful and reliable but also responsible and ethical.
• • A core aspect of your role will be to **SHAPE THE ARCHITECTURE** of our AI systems. This includes designing and taking ownership of production AI systems from inception to deployment, encompassing LLM pipelines, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) frameworks, reranking mechanisms, vector databases, and orchestration layers. You will be responsible for making informed build-versus-don't-build decisions, grounded in real-world data and performance metrics. Furthermore, you will drive the evolution of our AI stack over time, influencing everything from model infrastructure and workflow orchestration to the development of sophisticated evaluation tooling.
• • You will be tasked with **RAISING THE QUALITY BAR** for AI systems at Drata. This involves designing comprehensive evaluation systems capable of accurately measuring retrieval quality, reasoning accuracy, and end-to-end system performance. You will build and implement tooling that empowers the team to iterate with confidence and proactively catch regressions before they impact users. A key deliverable will be defining clear, measurable success metrics across the entire AI platform.
• • A significant part of your contribution will involve **INVESTIGATING DEEPLY & DECIDING WITH EVIDENCE**. You will conduct in-depth analysis of production AI outputs to identify subtle failure patterns and pinpoint root causes. Your findings will be translated into clear, actionable technical recommendations that guide future development. You will cultivate a data-driven approach, knowing precisely when to push forward with new initiatives and when to pause for further investigation based on empirical evidence.
• • You will **LEAD ACROSS TEAMS**, serving as the primary technical authority for AI architecture decisions. Your influence will extend to establishing and promoting standards for how LLM systems are built, tested, deployed, and monitored throughout the organization. You will actively mentor senior engineers, providing guidance through design reviews and hands-on collaborative problem-solving. Crucially, you will partner closely with product and compliance teams to effectively translate complex domain requirements into elegant and robust technical solutions.
• • Finally, you will be responsible for **BUILDING RESPONSIBLE, PRODUCTION-READY AI**. This means shipping systems that are meticulously optimized for latency, cost-efficiency, reliability, and auditability. You will embed critical safety guardrails, implement confidence thresholds for AI-generated outputs, and design effective human-in-the-loop workflows. Ensuring that AI outputs are traceable, explainable, and adhere to ethical AI principles will be paramount.
• • This role offers a unique opportunity to define the AI strategy and execution at a hyper-growth company, directly impacting the trust and value Drata delivers to its customers. You will be at the forefront of applying advanced AI techniques to solve critical business problems in the compliance and security space.