Software Engineer, Full Stack

Department: EPD

Location: San Francisco

Compensation: $170K – $220K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

What We Do

Shepherd is an AI-native commercial insurance platform transforming how high-hazard industries get covered. Our mission is to make risk frictionless for the builders and operators shaping the physical world — protecting progress from concept through construction and into decades of operation.

The infrastructure behind the AI boom — data centers, semiconductor fabs, renewable energy assets — has to be built and insured. But traditional carriers weren't built for this speed:

• Complex commercial construction projects routinely wait weeks for a single quote

• Legacy carriers rely on static applications and disconnected systems

• Brokers chase carriers through calls, emails, and resubmissions

We built Shepherd to solve that. Our AI performs the same underwriting workflows in seconds, and integrates real-time data from construction technology partners — Procore, Autodesk, OpenSpace, DroneDeploy, and others — to see risk as it actually exists, not just as it was reported on a static form.

We're pursuing the most ambitious technical vision in commercial insurance: fully autonomous underwriting. We're closing in on the first fully agentic submission in the industry — email in, price out, no human intervention until the last mile.

With Shepherd, safety, speed, and quality no longer trade off against one another — they compound. We're building:

• Faster decisions

• Smarter, more accurate pricing

• Better risk outcomes for insureds who invest in safer practices

We're not just modernizing insurance products. We're building the risk infrastructure for the next generation of financial services.

Our Investors

In March 2026, Shepherd raised a $42M Series B — bringing total funding to over $60M — led by Intact Private Capital, the investment arm of one of the largest insurers in the world. Intact is not only our lead investor but also a carrier partner, a testament to the confidence the incumbent industry has in what we're building. Our investors:

• Intact Private Capital

• Spark Capital

• Costanoa Ventures

• Y Combinator

• Susa Ventures

• And several others

Our Team

We're a team of technologists and insurance enthusiasts, bridging the two worlds together. Check out our About page to learn more.

The Role

We’re hiring a Software Engineer to build the core infrastructure behind underwriting, pricing, and policy workflows. This is high-leverage work. The systems you build will directly impact revenue, loss ratios, and how we scale.

You’ll work closely with engineers, actuaries, and underwriters to turn messy real-world logic into clean, durable systems. A lot of what we do starts in Excel and ends in production code. We care deeply about correctness, clarity, and speed.

This is an ownership-heavy role. You’ll be expected to reason from first principles, ship quickly, and improve things that feel broken.

What You’ll Do

• Build and own backend systems that power pricing models, underwriting workflows, and policy lifecycle infrastructure

• Translate complex actuarial and underwriting logic into maintainable, production-grade services

• Improve the performance and reliability of our core rating and decision systems

• Contribute to architectural decisions that set the foundation for how we scale

• Work directly with domain experts to define the right abstractions, not just implement tickets

• Hold a high bar for code quality, simplicity, and long-term maintainability

What We’re Looking For

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience

• Strong backend experience in TypeScript, Python, or similar

• Experience designing APIs and working with data-heavy systems

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, high-responsibility environments

• A bias toward ownership and shipping

• Good judgment – knowing when to move fast and when to slow down

Our Tech Stack

Frontend

• React & Next.js

• Typescript

• GraphQL w/ Apollo

Backend

• Node.js

• Postgres & Redis

• Typescript

• GraphQL APIs

You’ll Likely Thrive Here If

• You like building foundational systems, not surface-level features

• You enjoy working at the intersection of business logic and engineering

• You want your work to directly impact company outcomes

• You prefer small teams, high standards, and real accountability

• You care about building something durable

Why Join

We’re still early. The decisions we make now will shape the company for years. If you want to build core infrastructure, work closely with domain experts, and help modernize a massive industry, this is a rare opportunity to do it at the right stage.

Benefits 

🏥 Premium Healthcare
100% contribution to top-tier health, dental, and vision

🥕 Fertility benefits and family building support

🏖️ Unlimited PTO
Flexibility to take the time off, recharge, and perform

🥗 Daily lunches, dinners, and snacks
We work together, and enjoy meals together too

🖥️ SF, NYC, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago and LA Offices

📚 Professional Development
Access to premium coaching, including leadership development

🏦 Competitive 401(k) Plan

🐶 Dog-friendly office
Plenty of dogs to play with and make friends with in the SF office