--- title: 'Platform Engineer at Harper' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/platform-engineer-harper-san-francisco-gg66r2c8ygc1' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-05' --- # Platform Engineer at Harper - **Company:** Harper - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $140k–$280k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-07-24 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/harperinsure/3f450d2b-a1ae-4fe6-8ffc-76eaadcd5b43 ## Job description ## THE PROBLEM 36 million businesses in America need insurance—it's not optional. 77% are underinsured. 40% have no coverage at all. The distribution system failed them: too slow, too opaque, too confusing. Over 90% of commercial insurance is still human-led. We're building the inverse: 90%+ AI-led, pushing toward the higher 90s. Not by patching legacy workflows—by building AI that makes humans more effective, improves the customer experience, and eliminates friction at every step. We're adding ~1,000 customers per month. We've grown 100x since last year. We're looking to do even more this year—and that's why we're hiring. You build the systems the rest of engineering depends on. When they compound, everyone gets faster. ## THE THESIS Harper runs 200+ services across Railway and AWS. We orchestrate N parallel agentic workloads. Our AI systems make thousands of decisions a day, and every decision needs to be traceable, evaluated, and cheaper to run tomorrow than it is today. The infrastructure underneath all of that is the difference between a company that scales and one that stalls. Great platform engineering here isn't invisible—it's the reason product ships fast. When observability catches a silent failure before a customer does. When a pooling layer makes connection exhaustion a non-issue. When developer velocity doubles because someone built the tool nobody knew they needed. That leverage compounds across every other engineer on the team. ## THE ROLE You're an infrastructure-focused engineer with depth across databases, AWS, networking, observability, SRE, CI/CD, and AI tooling. You build the systems and tooling the rest of engineering depends on—optimized for performance, reliability, and developer velocity. You work directly with founders and alongside the product engineers who ship features on top of what you build. You see where things break at scale, design the fix, and ship it before it becomes a fire. When something goes wrong at 2 AM, you're the one who gets paged—and you'd rather build the system that prevents the page than accept it as inevitable. We are hiring platform engineers across all levels, which we determine during the interview process. ## WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own core infrastructure — Databases, AWS services, networking, CI/CD; the systems every engineer depends on - Build for scale — Thousands of concurrent AI operations, sub-second response times, cost-effective under load - Design observability that works — System-level errors AND business-level silent-failure detection; we find out something is broken from an alert, not from a person hours later - Orchestrate agentic workloads — N parallel agent instances doing non-deterministic work, running reliably and cost-effectively as N grows - Multiply developer velocity — The tooling and abstractions that let product engineers ship in days instead of weeks - Own reliability end-to-end — SLOs, on-call, incident response, and the post-mortems that make it rarer next time - Build the eval infrastructure — Systems that measure whether AI outputs are getting better, not just running YOU MIGHT BE A FIT IF... - You've owned production systems at scale—not contributed to, owned; you got paged when they broke - You write code with AI (Cursor, Claude Code) and know how to leverage it for infrastructure work - You have depth across at least two of: databases, cloud infrastructure (AWS), networking, observability, or CI/CD - You've designed systems that survive real load—retries, DLQs, back pressure, idempotency, the whole stack - You care about developer experience—the tools other engineers use are as much your product as the customer-facing ones - You'd rather build the system that prevents the fire than firefight forever ## REQUIREMENTS - Software engineering experience with a platform, infrastructure, or SRE focus (level determined during interviews) - Proficiency in Python, TypeScript, Go, or similar - Production experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS), databases (Postgres), and observability tooling - Track record of building systems and tooling that other engineers depend on - Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate ## NICE TO HAVE - Experience orchestrating AI/ML workloads at scale (agent frameworks, LLM inference infrastructure) - Voice AI or real-time systems experience - Deep AWS experience (ECS, Lambda, RDS, VPC design) - Prior startup experience—especially at companies that scaled through hypergrowth ## COMPENSATION & LOGISTICS - Salary: $140,000–$280,000 depending on experience + performance bonuses & equity - Location: San Francisco, in-office. Based in SF or willing to relocate. - Schedule: Monday–Friday, very early morning start, in-office five days a week. - Benefits: Uber commuter benefits; breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided; snacks, drinks, and coffee daily; free gym membership; health, dental, and vision insurance. ## THE PROCESS 1. Technical screen — 60 min remote: project deep dive + system design 2. Super Day on-site — meet the team, sit in on the operation, do real work alongside us. ## TO APPLY If you want to build AI capabilities against business problems you discover yourself, ship code that runs a real business, and work with people who show up with the same intensity every day—send your resume and a link to something you've built that had measurable business impact. ## About Harper ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Harper is an AI-native commercial insurance brokerage that uses data and automation to help mid-sized businesses secure optimal coverage faster and at lower cost. - **Entity Type**: Private startup (Y Combinator Winter 2025, raised $47 million) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Dakotah Rice (CEO) and Tushar Nair (CTO) ## Core Business - Primary industry: Commercial insurance (Excess & Surplus lines brokerage) - Target customers: Mid-sized businesses with complex insurance needs, spanning technology, life sciences, aerospace, construction, and consulting - Mission: "We want to become the largest insurance brokerage in the world with the best NPS." (Source: [Y Combinator](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/harper)) ## Products & Services - **Harper Hub**: Proprietary AI-native platform that automates form filling, carrier matching, and client communications, cutting weeks from the traditional quoting timeline. - **Brokerage Services**: Comprehensive commercial insurance products including General Liability, Professional Liability (tech E&O with no AI exclusions), Cyber Insurance, Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Umbrella, and Bonds – all placed through an AI-enhanced workflow. - **Specialty Expertise**: Deep coverage for regulated industries such as FDA‑regulated labs, aerospace contractors, and security guard firms. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$47 million** (confirmed on company website and Y Combinator profile; some third‑party sources list a lower figure but official sources indicate $47M) - **Notable Investors**: Y Combinator (pre‑seed lead); other investors not publicly detailed - **Growth Signals**: Writing over **$6 million in annualized premiums** across 35 states (as of early 2025); **6,000+ clients** with **98.78% client retention**; headcount of 39 employees growing **353% year‑over‑year**; **19 open positions**; 100% success placing tech E&O without AI exclusions. ## Competitive Advantages - **AI‑native infrastructure**: Proprietary technology automates quoting, binding, and service, enabling faster turnaround and lower overhead compared to traditional brokers. - **Deep niche expertise**: Focus on complex, regulated industries (tech, life sciences, aerospace) where incumbents often struggle. - **High retention**: 98.78% client retention rate and proven ability to place hard‑to‑cover policies (e.g., tech E&O with AI exclusions) signal strong customer trust. - **Data‑driven underwriting**: Real‑time analysis of prior interactions and quote intelligence to match businesses with the best carrier. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the AI‑native brokerage to serve the mid‑market today and eventually all businesses (commercial insurance commissions represent a $100B+ market). - Aggressively hiring across engineering, sales, operations, and partnerships to support rapid growth. - Expanding carrier partnerships and geographic reach (currently licensed in 35 states). ## Why Work Here - **Early‑stage impact**: Join a Y Combinator‑backed startup at its inflection point, building the AI‑native future of insurance. - **High‑leverage roles**: Engineers and GTM professionals work directly on systems (LLMs, automation) that drive measurable business outcomes. - **Culture**: "Human expertise amplified by AI" – domain knowledge meets cutting‑edge technology; teammates from Goldman Sachs, Coinbase, and other top firms. - **Work environment**: San Francisco headquarters with both in‑office and remote roles available depending on the position. - **Compensation**: Competitive startup salaries (e.g., $160K–$230K for engineering roles per job listings). - **Career growth**: Fast‑growing company (353% headcount growth) with opportunities to shape processes and take on ownership early. ## Sources 1. [harperinsure.com](https://harperinsure.com/) – Company website (home page) 2. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/harperinsure](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/harperinsure) – Careers page 3. [ycombinator.com/companies/harper](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/harper) – Y Combinator company profile 4. [linkedin.com/company/harperinsure](https://www.linkedin.com/company/harperinsure) – LinkedIn company page 5. [builtin.com/company/harper-harperinsurecom](https://builtin.com/company/harper-harperinsurecom) – Built In company profile ## Other roles at Harper - [Customer Service Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/customer-service-manager-harper-san-francisco-rmk9xyfgeny4) — San Francisco, CA - [Engineering Manager/TLM, Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-tlm-platform-harper-san-francisco-8h29hpszw0g7) — San Francisco, CA - [Engineering Manager, Growth](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-growth-harper-san-francisco-fasf4sj96myf) — San Francisco, CA - [Product Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/product-engineer-harper-san-francisco-2x6dytf3hvfp) — San Francisco, CA - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-harper-san-francisco-kh2x5jhcsqz5) — San Francisco, CA - [Data Automation Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/data-automation-specialist-harper-san-francisco-dng49ww48npf) — San Francisco, CA - [Data Analyst](https://feeny.ai/job/data-analyst-harper-san-francisco-93nb7rksmnsn) — San Francisco, CA - [Content Coordination](https://feeny.ai/job/content-coordination-harper-san-francisco-5dvvkf840yt3) — San Francisco, CA - [SEO/GEO Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/seo-geo-manager-harper-san-francisco-y3xt29593y80) — San Francisco, CA - [ABM Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/abm-lead-harper-san-francisco-nchxy0c1adse) — San Francisco, CA