Tech Lead, Applied AI

Abby Care

$130K — $180K *
Healthcare
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years in software engineering, machine learning, or Applied AI, with experience in production systems.
  • Track record of defining architecture and leading AI product delivery.
  • Hands-on experience with modern language models and complex data operation.
  • Strong fundamentals in software engineering and systems design.
  • Experience in establishing evaluation methods and performance monitoring for AI systems.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership and mentoring skills for senior engineers.
  • Excellent communication skills to engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

  • Define Applied AI vision and roadmap for hospital workflows.
  • Architect and develop AI systems for complex healthcare processes.
  • Design human-in-the-loop mechanisms for safe AI autonomy.
  • Create shared AI capabilities for various operational tasks.
  • Establish production standards for monitoring and improving AI systems.
  • Lead recruitment and mentorship for the Applied AI team.
  • Integrate AI systems within Abby Care's operational frameworks.

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation packages based on individual impact.
  • Comprehensive health coverage options with employer-paid life and disability insurance.
  • Generous paid time off, plus 10 paid company holidays.
  • Financial savings benefits including HSA contributions and full 401(k) fee coverage.
  • Paid parental leave to support family growth.
Full Job Description
The Opportunity

Abby Care is building an AI-native operating system for home care-one that manages the full lifecycle from caregiver and patient intake through care delivery, billing, and compliance.

As we expand our capacity to support more family caregivers at scale, we're looking for an Applied AI Technical Lead to define and build the intelligence layer of this platform. Reporting to the VP, Head of Engineering, you will serve as the senior technical leader for Applied AI across the company.

You will identify the highest-leverage opportunities for AI, define the technical architecture and roadmap, and lead the development of production systems that execute complex healthcare workflows. These systems may collect and interpret clinical documents, prepare prior authorization packets, assist caregivers and clinicians, coordinate operational work, predict risk, or surface exceptions requiring human judgment.

A true builder-leader, you are equally comfortable setting long-term technical direction, mentoring engineers, and going deep into implementation. You understand that building reliable AI systems requires more than connecting an application to a model: it requires thoughtful workflow design, rigorous evaluation, strong software engineering, and clear boundaries between autonomous execution and human oversight.

If you are excited to build and lead the Applied AI function at a fast-growing company while transforming how high-quality care is delivered in the home, we'd love to hear from you!

This is a full-time hybrid opportunity based in San Francisco, California, with four days per week in person.

What you'll work on

Set the Applied AI vision and roadmap: Define how AI will transform workflows across intake and enrollment, care delivery, revenue cycle management, and compliance. Partner with Engineering, Product, Clinical, Operations, and Analytics to prioritize the highest-leverage opportunities.

Build the intelligence layer of Abby Care's operating system: Architect and develop agentic systems that reason over complex information, interact with internal tools, and execute consequential healthcare workflows end to end.

Design for safe and scalable autonomy: Establish human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop patterns based on risk, reversibility, confidence, and regulatory requirements, combining AI with deterministic systems where appropriate.

Create shared AI foundations: Build reusable capabilities for orchestration, retrieval, knowledge representation, tool use, memory, structured outputs, evaluation, tracing, and feedback loops.

Establish production and evaluation rigor: Define how Abby Care measures, monitors, and improves AI systems across quality, safety, reliability, latency, cost, and downstream operational outcomes.

Build and lead the Applied AI function: Recruit and mentor engineers, set a high technical bar, embed AI engineers into domain teams, and remain hands-on in the most ambiguous and technically critical areas.
What success looks like
  • Abby Care has a clear, prioritized Applied AI strategy tied to measurable company and product outcomes.
  • High-impact AI systems are operating reliably in production and completing meaningful portions of end-to-end workflows.
  • AI autonomy is governed by explicit risk, confidence, and human-approval mechanisms.
  • The organization has rigorous evaluation, monitoring, and feedback systems that make AI performance measurable and auditable.
  • Domain teams can build on reusable AI primitives instead of repeatedly creating one-off solutions.
  • Applied AI capabilities are tightly integrated with Abby Care's System of Record, product workflows, and operational processes.
  • The Applied AI team attracts strong talent, operates with high technical standards, and becomes a force multiplier across the company.
  • Abby Care increases operational throughput and quality without proportional growth in manual coordination or headcount.
What you'll have
  • 8+ years of experience in software engineering, machine learning, or Applied AI, with significant experience building production systems.
  • Demonstrated experience defining the architecture and leading the delivery of AI-powered products or platforms.
  • Strong hands-on experience with modern language models, agent architectures, retrieval systems, tool use, structured outputs, and evaluation.
  • Experience designing systems that operate over complex, incomplete, or unstructured real-world data.
  • Strong software engineering and system-design fundamentals, including backend architecture, APIs, distributed systems, and data modeling.
  • Experience establishing evaluation methodologies and production monitoring for probabilistic systems.
  • Demonstrated ability to identify high-leverage problems and drive them from ambiguous problem definition through measurable outcomes.
  • Experience providing technical leadership across teams and mentoring senior engineers.
  • Strong product and operational judgment, including the ability to balance autonomy, reliability, speed, cost, and risk.
  • Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to align technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
  • Must reside in or be willing to permanently relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Experience with model fine-tuning, post-training, reinforcement learning, synthetic data generation, knowledge graphs, ontologies, workflow engines, or state machines is preferred but not required.
  • Experience in healthcare, fintech, insurance, or another regulated and operations-intensive environment is preferred but not required.
Benefits:
  • Competitive compensation packages that reflect the value you bring. We reward our team for the impact of their work.
  • Comprehensive health coverage that works for you. Choose from high-quality medical dental and vision options, including a $0 deductible PPO and a company-funded HSA, alongside employer-paid life and disability insurance.
  • Generous paid time off. We provide policies that allow you to recharge along with 10 paid company holidays.
  • Financial savings benefits to support your future. We support your financial well-being with HSA contributions, optional FSA and commuter benefits, and full coverage of all 401(k) account fees (employer match not currently offered).
  • Paid parental leave to support your growing family. We provide paid leave, so you can focus on bonding and adjusting to life as your family grows.

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