Testudo is building a new category of technology, data, and insurance products to underwrite enterprise generative AI risk. We deliver risk transfer solutions - insurance, and real-time risk monitoring/AI security technology to businesses deploying generative AI. This enables them to innovate with confidence and accelerate safe adoption of AI technologies.
Our mission: To insure the AI economy.
We're a tight-knit, in‑person team of domain specialists building the technology stack that will underwrite AI risk across enterprise deployments, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. We have offices in San Francisco, London, and New York.
The Role
We’re hiring an AI Software Engineer to help build the core services of our underwriting and risk monitoring platforms. You'll be among the first engineering hires outside the founding team, with the opportunity to shape both our product and engineering culture from the ground up.
This is a zero-politics, high-trust environment. You'll have end-to-end ownership of features, real product input, direct access to customers, and the mandate to move fast.
Compensation: $150,000 - $250,000 base + meaningful equity
Location: San Francisco, London, or New York (in-office). Visa sponsorship available for exceptional candidates.
Why Join Us
You’ll own mission-critical systems, which will manage billions+ of dollars of real financial risk capital including underwriting pipelines and monitoring dashboards.
You’ll collaborate closely with founders, data scientists, Lloyd's market experts, mentors/advisors, and product leaders, to build applications that define a new insurance category.
We move fast, ship often, and value engineers who can wear many hats — front-end, back-end, ops, cowboy and beyond.
What You’ll Do
Design, implement, and maintain key backend services that power our underwriting and risk monitoring platforms.
Design, build, and own end-to-end features across Next.js/React, Node.js/TypeScript, and Python + PostgresQL.
Lead complex system design, ensure scalability, observability, and robustness in fast-evolving AI risk domains.
Mentor your peers, contribute to technical vision, and foster best practices across the team.
Partner cross‑functionally with founders, product, risk, and data science to turn ambiguous problems into shipped software.
Participate in in-person strategy sessions, rapid prototyping, and cross-functional roadmap planning.
Represent the company with high integrity, intelligence and energy.
You Might Be a Fit If You
Are equipped with high raw horsepower.
Operate 5-10+ coding agents in parallel.
Have 5+ years building production web software (startup experience strongly preferred).
Are fluent in Python and Node.js/TypeScript, with front‑end and design experience building in React/Next.js.
Have experience designing scalable services, building high-throughput data pipelines, or handling real-time monitoring.
Operate with ownership and autonomy; you bias toward action and unblock yourself.
Have excellent cross-functional communication and are comfortable interacting in product, risk, data science, and customer contexts.
Are comfortable with in-person, fast-paced collaboration, and rapid iteration.
Relish direct feedback.
Have a desire to go on an adventure with a hardcore team of killers who have frontier spirit.
You Might Not Be a Fit If You
Prefer remote/hybrid over in-office 8am-8pm 5 days/week.
Want heavy process/long planning cycles vs. ship-daily culture.
Uncomfortable with ambiguity, changing priorities, or direct customer contact.
Prefer narrow specialization vs. wearing multiple hats.
Nice-to-Haves
Experience with risk modeling, real-time monitoring systems, AI security insights, insurance.
Familiarity with AI models, prompt engineering, and integrating production agentic AI-workflows.
Built real‑time monitoring/observability or high‑throughput data systems.
Practical experience integrating LLMs/agentic workflows, evals, and AI observability.
Our Stack
Frontend: Next.js/TypeScript
Backend: Node.js, Python
Data/Infra: Python, SQLAlchemy, Postgres, Temporal
Tooling: CI/CD, AI dev tools, evals/observability pipelines
What We Offer
Competitive salary + equity
Health insurance
Relocation support
Gym membership
AI tool subscriptions (Cursor, Claude Code, ChatGPT, etc.)
High ownership and the chance to shape product, culture, and exceptional engineering standards in a fast‑growing space
Testudo is backed by leading investors including IA Capital Group, LocalGlobe, A100x, Mastercard, Josh Buckley, Charlie Songhurst, Goldman Sachs partners and other VC scout funds.
Skills Required
- 5+ years building production web software (startup experience strongly preferred)
- Fluent in Python
- Fluent in Node.js and TypeScript
- Front-end and design experience building in React and Next.js
- Experience designing scalable services, high-throughput data pipelines, or real-time monitoring systems
- In-office work in San Francisco, London, or New York (in-office collaboration required)
- Excellent cross-functional communication and comfort interacting with product, risk, data science, and customers
- Experience with risk modeling, AI security insights, or insurance
- Familiarity with AI models, prompt engineering, LLM integration, and agentic AI workflows
- Experience with Temporal, SQLAlchemy, Postgres, CI/CD, or AI observability/eval tooling
What We Do
Testudo is a tech-enabled managing general agent (MGA) and Lloyd's coverholder specializing in generative AI liability insurance. The company provides dedicated coverage for businesses deploying generative AI and agentic systems, protecting them against the costs of lawsuits and damages arising from AI-generated outputs. Their services address critical risks such as intellectual property infringement, discrimination, and model underperformance, helping companies deploy AI safely and confidently.
