Location: La Jolla, CA
The Details:Palomar is a fast-growing specialty insurer with an executive mandate for AI. We are hiring a Principal AI Scientist to shape how AI is applied, scaled and enabled across the company, combining scientific depth, hands-on engineering and business judgment.
You will report to the EVP, Head of AI, write code, own AI architecture and standards, and help shape the team as the program grows. Your initial focus is the foundation everything else runs on: how Palomar's knowledge is represented so agents can use it, a governed library of skills, plugins and connectors that turns a chat tool into how the company works, and a community of employees who build safely on it. You will set the scientific bar for how we evaluate retrieval, test agents and measure outcomes.
As internal owners are trained to take on the platform's day-to-day operation, your applied science expands into predictive modeling, machine learning and strategic decision support for business leaders.
If you have built an AI platform other teams adopted and want to do it again where the outcome matters, this is that job.
What will you do:Build the foundation- Own the technical direction and operation of our enterprise AI platform: models, permissions, connectors, reliability and cost.
- Build a governed marketplace of reusable skills and plugins that any employee can contribute to or use within their own permissions.
- Turn Palomar's procedures and expert know-how into version-controlled context that agents use reliably, connected to trusted data and core systems.
- Set evaluation and release standards: test cases, acceptance criteria, an accountable owner and monitoring for everything that ships.
- Advise AI leadership on which tools to build, buy, improve or retire.
Grow the builders- Lead enablement through training, office hours and review of employee-built solutions, and develop internal owners for what gets built.
- Work with business experts to capture judgment and exceptions, and turn what works into tested, reusable capabilities.
Advance applied AI and machine learning- Shape the applied AI agenda with business leaders, prioritizing by value, feasibility, data readiness and risk.
- Develop, validate and deploy predictive models and decision support for problems from prioritization and routing to portfolio and distribution, choosing statistical, machine learning or LLM methods as the problem requires, with clear boundaries for automation and human review.
- Measure decision quality and business impact against real baselines, monitor what ships, and work with Risk and Compliance to keep it within Palomar's AI policies.
What we are looking for:- Master's or PhD in computer science, statistics, machine learning, operations research or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years shipping machine learning or AI systems in production, including recent hands-on work with LLM applications: agents, retrieval, tool integration (for example, Model Context Protocol) and evaluation.
- You have built a platform or shared tooling that other teams adopted, and you can show it.
- Strong statistics and experimental design, and the judgment to tell predictive accuracy from business impact.
- Hands-on depth in supervised and unsupervised learning, feature engineering and model validation, including data leakage, uncertainty and drift.
- Strong Python, SQL and software engineering fundamentals: APIs, Git, testing, CI/CD and cloud. This role writes code.
- The ability to frame ambiguous problems with domain experts, explain tradeoffs plainly to executives and engineers, and help non-engineers build with AI effectively.
Additional experience we value:- Insurance or financial services, especially underwriting, operations or claims.
- Forecasting, optimization, causal inference or decision science.
- Operating an enterprise LLM platform at company scale.
- Model risk management or AI governance in a regulated industry.
We love people who want to:- Build strong relationships through transparency, trust, and respect for each other.
- Work in an agile environment, with a resilient mindset to find creative solutions to challenges.
- Collaborate and celebrate diverse perspectives, promoting inclusivity and equality.
- Do the right thing with strong conviction and integrity.
- Be bold and innovative to help make an impact.
- Demonstrable track record of working autonomously and driving progress
- Be intellectually curious, think creatively, and pragmatic
If you thrive in a dynamic environment, and like working with happy, authentic, talented people, you'll enjoy a career with Palomar!What will you get in return?- Full Suite of Medical Benefits
- Long Term Financial Incentives - STOCK!
- 401k with 3.5% Automatic Fully Vested Employer Contributions
- Competitive PTO + Holiday Program
- Lifestyle Spending Allowance
- Professional Development Assistance
- Career Exploration Opportunities
- Regular company-wide social events (even virtually!)
- To learn more visit us at www.plmr.com
Pay Range: $175,000-$275,000 + Bonus Potential & Participation in our Competitive Long-Term Incentive (LTI) Program.
The above pay range is for all US-based roles based on function and level, benchmarked against companies of similar size and scope. To be compliant with local legislation as well as provide greater transparency to candidates, we disclose salary ranges on all job postings regardless of the desired job location. We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and the opportunity for annual long-term incentive stock grants. In addition, we offer a highly competitive benefits package. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and qualifications, and may vary from the amounts listed above
