Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Drata is a leading company in compliance software innovation, dedicated to building trust and security across the internet. They are looking for a Staff Applied AI Engineer to enhance the quality and effectiveness of their AI systems through research, experimentation, and evaluation, focusing on compliance automation.

Responsibilities

• Design and evaluate information access + reasoning strategies across RAG, agents, and classic ML: chunking, embedding models, hybrid search, metadata filtering, structured retrieval, tool use, and multi-step workflows
• Prototype GenAI workflows (including agentic systems) that map and reason over compliance objects (controls ↔ risks ↔ requirements)
• Explore ML + probabilistic approaches where GenAI is not the best fit: classifiers, ranking models, graph/link prediction, calibration, and weak supervision
• Build and maintain evaluation frameworks: golden datasets, automated quality metrics, regression detection
• Implement and tune ranking/reranking systems: cross-encoders, LLM-based rerankers, learning-to-rank, custom scoring functions
• Run experiments to validate hypotheses and quantify improvements before production rollout
• Debug failure modes and build error taxonomies across retrieval, reasoning, and generation
• Collaborate with AI and Software Engineers to hand off validated approaches for productionization
• Stay current on applied research in RAG, agents, LLM evaluation, and relevance modeling; bring innovations into the product

Skills

• 10+ years of experience in applied research, data science, or ML with a focus on NLP, information retrieval, or knowledge systems
• 2+ years of hands-on experience building or contributing to production AI/ML systems
• Strong foundation in information retrieval: dense and sparse retrieval, embedding models, search relevance
• Experience with RAG systems: chunking strategies, vector databases, retrieval optimization
• Proficiency in evaluation methodology: metrics design, golden dataset creation, A/B testing, statistical analysis
• Strong Python skills and comfort with notebook-driven research workflows
• Experience communicating research findings to engineering teams and translating insights into actionable recommendations
• Experience with compliance, legal, or document-heavy domains
• Publications or contributions in IR, NLP, or RAG evaluation

Benefits

• Stock equity to ensure that as the company grows, you share directly in that success
• Up to 100% employer-paid premiums for medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees •and their dependents•
• Comprehensive wellness benefits and healthcare concierge services designed to support your needs beyond traditional insurance
• A comprehensive suite of financial benefits, including a 401(k) plan, company-paid life and disability insurance, tax-advantaged spending accounts, and a range of discounted voluntary offerings to help you customize and strengthen your overall financial position
• Paid Parental Leave policy, after six months of employment
• Access to Kindbody fertility and family-building benefits and dedicated leave specialists who help guide you through the entire process
• Generous annual stipends for both professional and personal development
• Access to a wide range of internal learning opportunities
• Flexible vacation policy, paid holidays, and other perks to recharge

Company Overview

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