Senior Permitting & Plan Review Expert (Contract)

Brain Co. is an applied AI startup co-founded by Jared Kushner and Elad Gil, and backed by leading Silicon Valley builders including Patrick Collison and Andrej Karpathy.

We are building AI applications for the world’s most important institutions, delivering impact on real-world problems across governments, healthcare systems, and critical industries.

Our progress so far:

• Automated construction permitting for a sovereign government → 80% faster, unlocking $375M+ in value

• Optimized supply chains for a leading global energy company → 30% lower cost, 99% reliability, preventing $100M+ in losses

• Streamlined hospital patient care across national health systems → 40% better outcomes, 80% less admin work

Company momentum:

• Raised a $55M Series A from leading investors

• Built a team of 70+ AI experts from Tesla, Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, and Databricks

At Brain Co., we focus on applying frontier AI to real institutional challenges, working alongside governments, healthcare systems, and critical industries to modernize how essential services operate.

We are looking for leaders who want to help bring new technology into institutions that impact millions of people.

We are hiring a Senior Permitting & Plan Review Expert to serve as a full-time domain expert for our engineering, product, design, data, and go-to-market teams.

This is not a traditional production review role where your main job is to clear a queue of permits. Instead, you will help Brain Co. understand how real permit reviewers make decisions, interpret building codes, evaluate applications, and handle edge cases across jurisdictions.

The role is roughly:

80% permitting, plan review, code interpretation, and application review
20% product, project management, documentation, and GTM support

• Answer nuanced permitting and code interpretation questions from engineering, product, and design teams

• Review permit applications, plan sets, submittals, and AI outputs to identify what is correct, incorrect, missing, or ambiguous

• Help define what a real reviewer would approve, reject, or send back for revisions

• Label applications and review examples to help train and evaluate our ML systems

• Synthesize jurisdiction-specific requirements, local amendments, and reviewer practices into clear internal guidance

• Speak with other SMEs, reviewers, or jurisdiction contacts when needed to understand local practices

• Help create internal review rubrics, checklists, documentation, and benchmark examples

• Occasionally support customer conversations, product discovery, onboarding, or GTM work as a domain expert

• 8+ years of hands-on permitting, plan review, plans examination, private provider, building official, or code consulting experience

• Strong understanding of building codes and how they are applied in practice

• Experience reviewing permit applications, construction documents, plan sets, or submittal packages

• Ability to explain technical code and permitting issues clearly to engineers, product managers, and non-experts

• Strong judgment about what matters in a real review and what typically triggers comments, revisions, or rejection

• Comfort reviewing AI/software-generated outputs and giving direct, specific feedback

• Strong written communication and documentation skills
  

• ICC certifications such as Building Plans Examiner, Residential Plans Examiner, Commercial Plans Examiner, or Certified Building Official

• Experience across multiple jurisdictions, states, municipalities, or private provider environments

• Experience in California, Florida, Texas, or other high-volume permitting markets

• Experience reviewing residential, commercial, tenant improvement, solar, EV charger, MEP, accessibility, zoning, or structural permits

• Experience managing reviewers, creating SOPs, or supporting permitting process improvement

• PE, RA, CBO, CASp, or similar professional credentials

If you’re excited about helping modernize government and bringing frontier AI into the public sector, we’d love to hear from you.

San Francisco preferred.