Senior Principal Backend Engineer, Conversational AI
- Compensation
- $220K–$235K / yr
- Location
- USA - Remote
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Category
- Backend
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Meticulous: You pay attention to detail and take pride in what you deliver
- Articulate: You succinctly and effectively communicate verbal and written technical and non-technical ideas and topics
- Kind, not (just) nice: You provide tough feedback in a clear and concise manner that does not diminish or belittle the recipient
- Opinionated: You bring strong opinions to discussions but are willing to change your mind when presented with new or better information
- Product-minded: You focus on the “why” just as much as the “what” or “how”
- Collaborative: You work within your team and cross-functionally to build consensus and achieve results
- Autonomous: You are self-motivated, able to hold yourself accountable, and can generate high-value work with little direct supervision
Full description
About Trellis
Trellis is rewriting the insurance experience from the inside out. We’re the tech company behind Savvy, our licensed insurance agency, and we’re bringing clarity and ease to a space known for… the opposite. With powerful tools, clean design, and a customer-first mindset, we’re making insurance shopping refreshingly effortless.
We’re a profitable, fast-growing Series A startup backed by General Catalyst, QED, NYCA, and Amex Ventures. As a remote-first team, we move quickly, experiment boldly, and build with intention.
If you’re craving meaningful impact, energized by ambiguity, and are ready to build alongside exceptional teammates, you’re going to love doing your best work at Trellis.
Position Overview
As a Senior Principal Software Engineer on the Conversational AI team at Savvy (Trellis), you’ll play a critical role in shaping the future of our AI-driven customer experiences. You’ll architect and build intelligent systems that power natural, engaging conversations between users and our platform. Working closely with cross-functional partners, you’ll transform high-level product initiatives into scalable, well-tested technical solutions.
You’ll lead the way on complex projects by defining scope, setting technical direction, and mentoring teammates along the way. You’ll guide the team through tough challenges, offer thoughtful code reviews, and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and collaboration. Whether you're onboarding new teammates or refining our LLM-driven infrastructure, you’ll be a key force behind our AI innovation.
You will report directly into John Hartley, Head of Conversational AI.
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What You’ll Do
- Own the ideation and execution of high-impact projects that directly influence the user experience and business outcomes
- Flesh out and evolve the Conversational AI Engineering roadmap alongside product and technical leadership
- Incept projects: identify opportunities, design solutions, and lead implementation
- Guide integration efforts with external agencies and insurance carriers
- Normalize, rank, and evaluate results using ML-based predictions to determine optimal user paths
- Work closely with our Data Science team to leverage MLMs in tools like DataRobot for retention forecasting and decision logic
- Ensure scalability and performance across the platform as we continue to grow
What You’ll Need
While you don’t need all of these to be successful in this role, we think you’ll be more successful the more you have.
- 7+ years’ experience developing software in a production environment