AI Engineer III

Workforce Classification:

Join Our Team: Do Meaningful Work and Improve People’s Lives 

Our purpose, to improve customers’ lives by making healthcare work better, is far from ordinary. And so are our employees. Working at Premera means you have the opportunity to drive real change by transforming healthcare.

Premera is committed to being a workplace where people feel empowered to grow, innovate, and lead with purpose. By investing in our employees and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous development, we’re able to better serve our customers. It’s this commitment that has earned us recognition as one of the best companies to work for. Learn more about our recent awards and recognitions as a greatest workplace.

Learn how Premera supports our members, customers and the communities that we serve through our Healthsource blog:  https://healthsource.premera.com/.

As an AI Engineer III, you will work within a team responsible for taking AI/ML solutions from initial concept to full production implementation. This role requires creativity and analytical skills to understand business challenges, propose AI-enabled solutions, and bring them to life through robust system design, modeling, and coding. You will collaborate cross-functionally to ideate and prototype new AI products. Your models, architectures, and software contributions will power innovative AI systems that solve complex problems at scale. To excel in this role, you will need hands-on experience rapidly developing and deploying ML algorithms alongside strong software engineering abilities to build reliable and maintainable AI infrastructure.

This is a remote/telecommuter position, working from home.

What you’ll do: 

• Develop comprehensive systems and frameworks for AI applications and products.

• Construct prototypes and minimum viable products to validate AI/ML solutions before committing substantial resources.

• Develop, refine, and productionize AI systems using cloud resources such as Azure OpenAI, Azure ML, and Cognitive Services.

• Contribute to the creation of robust data pipelines for model evolution and production systems.

• Develop specifications for low latency APIs and services necessary to deploy AI models and incorporate them into applications.

• Supervise and sustain AI systems in production to guarantee consistent model accuracy and reliability.

• Actively participate in a team that exercises principled, agile-like development practices.

• Create and maintain thorough documentation that is consistent with team procedures, corporate policies, and expectations.

• Ensure peer review on all assigned work, as well as conduct peer reviews over the work of others as requested.

• Guide junior AI engineers on AI/ML and industry best practices and methodologies.

• Keep abreast of new tools and concepts through reading documentation or literature and actively practicing skills development.

• Support and participate in meetings with external stakeholders.

What you’ll bring:

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field, or 2+ years of experience in a related, professional IT/analytics position.

• Minimum of 3 years of industry experience in developing, deploying, and maintaining AI or ML systems. Up to two years of industry experience may be substituted with an AI centered Master’s/PhD or AI Engineering certifications.

Preferred Qualifications

• At least 4 years of experience in developing deep learning models using TensorFlow, PyTorch, MLX, JAX, or other modern deep learning frameworks. Previous experience with older libraries like Theano or Caffe is also accepted. (May supplement with graduate level education or research experience).

• Knowledge of and experience in implementing ethical AI practices, with at least 2 years spent working on projects that require explainable AI, fairness, and bias mitigation.

• Minimum of 3 years of proficiency in utilizing advanced prompt engineering techniques like General Knowledge Prompting and ReAct. Adept at using libraries like LangChain or OpenPrompt for complex projects. Possess the capability to mitigate prompt injection attacks and use tools like Guardrails or PromptInject for securing prompt engineering pipelines.

• Minimum of 3 years of experience in successfully productionizing AI models, including constructing scalable data pipelines and establishing robust monitoring systems.

• 3 or more years working within Agile-like teams and environments.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Experience developing deep learning architectures such as CNNs, transformers, GANs, LSTMs, GNNs, Autoencoders, Diffusion Models, and Neural Ordinary Differential Equations (NODEs).

• Proficiency in debugging AI systems and enhancing performance through hyperparameter tuning and similar techniques.

• Proven experience in productionizing models by constructing scalable data pipelines, low-latency services, and robust monitoring.

• Familiarity with software design patterns, microservices, distributed computing, container orchestration, and other relevant architectures.

• Proficient software engineering skills as well as skills building secure, stable software systems at scale.

• Proficiency in developing and optimizing ML solutions using languages like Python, and libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib and scikit-learn.

• Familiarity working with traditional ML lifecycles.

• Familiarity with building minimal interfaces to interact with AI products, e.g., Streamlit or Shiny.

• Familiarity with ethical AI practices including explainable AI, fairness, and mitigation of bias/hallucinations.

• Strong communication, collaboration, and mentorship skills.

• Growing ability to articulate the technical details and tradeoffs of AI solutions to non-technical stakeholders in a clear and concise manner.

Physical Requirements

The following have been identified as essential physical requirements of this job and must be performed with or without an accommodation:

• This is primarily a sedentary role which requires the ability to exert up to 10 lbs. of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects, including the human body.

• This role requires the ability to keyboard and to communicate clearly and understandably in person and over the telephone.

Premera total rewards

Our comprehensive total rewards package provides support, resources, and opportunities to help employees thrive and grow. Our total rewards are more than a collection of perks, they're a reflection of our commitment to your health and well-being. We offer a broad array of rewards including physical, financial, emotional, and community benefits, including:

• Medical, vision, and dental coverage with low employee premiums.

• Voluntary benefit offerings, including pet insurance for paw parents.

• Life and disability insurance.

• Retirement programs, including a 401K employer match and, believe it or not, a pension plan that is vested after 3 years of service.

• Wellness incentives with a wide range of mental well-being resources for you and your dependents, including counseling services, stress management programs, and mindfulness programs, just to name a few.

• Generous paid time off to reenergize.

• Looking for continuing education? We have tuition assistance for both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

• Employee recognition program to celebrate anniversaries, team accomplishments, and more.

For our hybrid employees, our on-campus model provides flexibility to create your own routine with access to on-site resources, networking opportunities, and team engagement.

• Commuter perks make your trip to work less impactful on the environment and your wallet.

• Free convenient on-site parking.

• Subsidized on-campus cafes make lunchtime connections with colleagues fun and affordable.

• Participate in engaging on-site activities such as health and wellness events, coffee connects, disaster preparedness fairs and more.

• Our complementary fitness & well-being center offers both in-person and virtual workouts and nutritional counseling.

• Need a brain break? Challenge someone to a game of shuffleboard or ping pong while on campus.

Equal employment opportunity/affirmative action:

Premera is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Premera seeks to attract and retain the most qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, genetic information or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

If you need an accommodation to apply online for positions at Premera, please contact Premera Human Resources via email at careers@premera.com or via phone at 425-918-4785.

Premera is hiring in the following states, with some limitations based on role or city: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin.

The pay for this role will vary based on a range of factors including, but not limited to, a candidate’s geographic location, market conditions, and specific skills and experience.

The salary range for this role is posted below; we generally target up to and around the midpoint of the range.

National Salary Range:

National Plus Salary Range:

*National Plus salary range is used in higher cost of labor markets including Western Washington and Alaska.

We’re happy to discuss compensation further during the interview because we believe that open communication leads to better outcomes for all. We’re committed to creating an environment where all employees are celebrated for their unique skills and contributions.