Software Engineer

What We Do

Yesterday's insurance wasn't built for today's risk. We see it in the data and we feel it in the field. Emerging technology can reinvent how risk is priced and managed, faster and smarter, anchored in proven expertise. First-movers will define the next era of commercial risk management, and Shepherd is building it.

Shepherd is a technology-driven Managing General Underwriter (MGU) transforming commercial Property & Casualty insurance for high-hazard industries. 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.

We're building the fastest, smartest commercial risk platform, where underwriting expertise, data, and automation work together to deliver:

• Faster decisions

• Smarter, more accurate pricing

• Better risk outcomes

With Shepherd, safety, speed, and quality no longer trade off against one another. They compound. We're not just modernizing insurance products. We're building the risk infrastructure for the next generation of financial services, where technology, underwriting, and partnerships operate in harmony to support the world's most important industries and the progress they make possible.

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, led our Series B round

• Costanoa Ventures, led our Series A round

• Spark Capital, led our Seed round

• Susa Ventures, lead our Pre-Seed round

• Y Combinator

• 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.

How we work

Shepherd runs on four values. Here's what each one means in this seat.

• Think big, build big. We exist to protect progress and the industries that rely on it. The work here is aimed at a system that runs on its own, and the roadmap gets sequenced backward from that rather than forward from what's easy.

• Win together. We rise as one. We support each other, raise the bar, and celebrate collective success. As the first PM you set a standard the rest of the team inherits, and the milestones belong to the team rather than to product.

• Cross the aisle. Collaboration wins. We listen deeply, work across boundaries, and prioritize shared success over individual lanes. The best product calls here come from engineers who've sat with underwriters and underwriters who understand where the model breaks, and much of this job is listening closely enough on both sides to make that happen.

• Go get it. We act with urgency, move with confidence, take smart risks, and push forward with intention. Nobody hands you the roadmap, the data, or the meeting invite. You pull the failing runs, book the time with the underwriters, and decide what matters.

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