Shepherd jobs, judged for you, free

What they do

Shepherd is a managing general underwriter. It keeps the underwriting authority, and partner carriers provide the coverage. It covers construction and renewable energy companies with primary casualty, excess casualty, and builder's risk products. Its AI platform reads the files that a broker sends and gives a price indication. Shepherd Savings lowers premiums for contractors that share jobsite technology data.

What they value

• Think big, build big: protect progress and the industries that rely on it.
• Cross the aisle: listen deeply and work across team boundaries.
• Go get it: act with urgency and take smart risks.
• Win together: support each other and raise the bar.

Where they hire

All 21 open roles are onsite in the United States. Twelve list San Francisco first and nine list New York City. Most underwriting roles are also open in the Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Los Angeles offices. Engineering and product roles are in San Francisco, except one staff engineer in New York. The postings say nothing about visa sponsorship.

Teams and roles

Engineering has the most open roles, then underwriting and marketing. Every posting states a salary range.

• Engineering: full stack, backend, applied AI, and staff software engineers, the first machine learning engineer, and the first analytics engineer. The stack is TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, GraphQL, Postgres, and Redis. The platform has three parts: data collection, automated underwriting, and policy administration.
• Nova: the team that builds fully autonomous underwriting. Its agents read the documents from a broker, extract the facts, and give back a priced account. Nova is hiring its first product manager.
• Underwriting: senior and executive underwriters, a senior energy underwriter, a production lead for builder's risk, and a technical lead for inland marine.
• Actuarial: a data analyst who supports rate filings with state insurance departments, and a data science lead who owns the pricing models for commercial auto.
• Marketing: three growth roles that build paid media, account-based marketing, and automation for the broker channel, and one role for brand and events.
• Customer experience: an associate who works with broker partners after a sale and leads customer demos and onboarding.

Engineers work closely with underwriters and actuaries. The staff engineer in New York will be the first engineer in that office.

What they look for

Engineering, underwriting, and customer experience postings ask for people who are not afraid of ambiguity. Engineering postings also ask for ownership of the work from start to release. Software engineer roles ask for four or five years of experience, and staff roles ask for eight. Most engineering roles ask for JavaScript or TypeScript, and some ask for experience with insurance. The machine learning role asks for Python and experience with LLMs in production.

Underwriter roles ask for five years in commercial underwriting, and the executive underwriter role asks for seven. They prefer construction, casualty, or builder's risk experience. They also ask for sales skills and a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. The technical lead for inland marine needs ten years.

The growth roles ask for four years in growth marketing and daily use of AI coding tools such as Cursor or Claude Code. The actuarial data science lead needs an ACAS or FCAS designation. The postings do not describe the interview steps.