Staff Applied AI Scientist

Our healthcare system is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. Every year, over 50 million Americans suffer adverse financial consequences as a result of seeking care, from lower credit scores to garnished wages. The challenge is only getting worse, as high deductible health plans are the fastest growing plan design in the U.S.

Cedar’s mission is to leverage data science, smart product design and personalization to make healthcare more affordable and accessible. Today, healthcare providers still engage with its consumers in a “one-size-fits-all” approach; and Cedar is excited to leverage consumer best practices to deliver a superior experience.

The Role:

Cedar is massively investing in building artificial intelligence products and the demand for AI expertise is increasing. We are seeking a Staff Applied AI Scientist to join our team in building features powered by large language models and generative AI technologies. We aim to use AI to drive bill clarity for patients and streamline workflows for our customers, which are large healthcare systems across the US. In this role, you will develop a deep understanding of Cedar’s data and workflows, and utilize your expertise in generative AI to drive business value. You'll leverage both creative problem-solving and rigorous experimentation to develop, evaluate, and optimize AI-powered features that transform the healthcare financial experience. You will provide technical leadership and act as a force multiplier, enhancing the team’s ability to deliver exceptional AI-driven solutions. You will drive innovation, ensuring Cedar remains a leader in generative AI product development by championing and implementing cutting-edge strategies and best practices.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate cross-functionally to build multi-modal AI-powered features to enhance servicing solutions (e.g. chatbots, virtual assistants, automation of workflows) and improve the patient experience (e.g. AI-generated bill explanations, guidance on options to improve bill affordability)
• Architect and implement scalable data curation strategies, leveraging diverse data sources (audio, text, structured data) to build high-quality datasets for AI development and evaluation 
• Establish robust evaluation frameworks and metrics for GenAI solutions, empowering the team to rigorously test, monitor, and measure the performance, iterate rapidly, and deliver high-performing AI products
• Champion best practices for GenAI development, providing technical guidance and mentorship to the AI team
• Develop and articulate strategic technical visions that drive transformative advancements in our AI product development
• Work with product counterparts to conduct ongoing research into customer workflows and emerging AI technologies, proactively identifying, proposing, and prototyping innovative AI applications to drive business value

Skills and Experience:

• At least 8 years of professional experience in AI/ML, with a proven track record of delivering customer-facing GenAI products
• Deep expertise in GenAI techniques, such as effective prompt engineering, LLM evaluation, and fine-tuning
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership in complex, cross-functional AI projects and work collaboratively with engineering, data, product, and design teams
• Strong understanding of both software engineering and machine learning principles, with a proven ability to balance experimental rigor and rapid production deployment
• Ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial environment, and achieve clarity from ambiguity
• Production-level Python expertise required, with proficiency in version control

This role offers hybrid from New York City or is fully remote.

Compensation Range and Benefits

• Salary/Hourly Rate Range*: $216,750 - $255,000
• This role is equity eligible
• This role offers a competitive benefits and wellness package

*Subject to location, experience, and education
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What do we offer to the ideal candidate?

• A chance to improve the U.S. healthcare system at a high-growth company! Our leading healthcare financial platform is scaling rapidly, helping millions of patients per year
• Unless stated otherwise, most roles have flexibility to work from home or in the office, depending on what works best for you
• For exempt employees: Unlimited PTO for vacation, sick and mental health days–we encourage everyone to take at least 20 days of vacation per year to ensure dedicated time to spend with loved ones, explore, rest and recharge
• 16 weeks paid parental leave with health benefits for all parents, plus flexible re-entry schedules for returning to work
• Diversity initiatives that encourage Cedarians to bring their whole selves to work, including three employee resource groups: be@cedar (for BIPOC-identifying Cedarians and their allies), Pridecones (for LGBTQIA+ Cedarians and their allies) and Cedar Women+ (for female-identifying Cedarians) 
• Competitive pay, equity (for qualifying roles) and health benefits that start on the first of the month following your start date (or on your start date if your start date coincides with the first of the month)
• Cedar matches 100% of your 401(k) contributions, up to 3% of your annual compensation
• Access to hands-on mentorship, employee and management coaching, and a team discretionary budget for learning and development resources to help you grow both professionally and personally

About us

Cedar was co-founded by Florian Otto and Arel Lidow in 2016 after a negative medical billing experience inspired them to help improve our healthcare system. With a commitment to solving billing and patient experience issues, Cedar has become a leading healthcare technology company fueled by remarkable growth. "Over the past several years, we've raised more than $350 million in funding & have the active support of Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

As of November 2024, Cedar is engaging with 30 million patients annually and is on target to process $3.5 billion in patient payments annually. Cedar partners with more than 55 leading healthcare providers and payers including Highmark Inc., Allegheny Health Network, Novant Health, Allina Health and Providence.