# Applied AI Engineer

- **Company:** [zania](/companies/zania)
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Type:** full_time
- **Posted:** Aug 18, 2026
- **Views:** 1


---

## Job Description

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why Zania&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Every enterprise spends millions on Governance, Risk, and Compliance. It&#x27;s one of the most critical — and most painful — parts of running a business. The industry has been dominated by legacy platforms with notoriously low NPS scores for decades. It&#x27;s completely ripe for disruption.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Zania is building agentic AI for GRC to solve this problem. We&#x27;re building intelligent agents that execute complex risk and compliance workflows with full explainability — not dashboards, not copilots, but agents that do the work. We&#x27;ve found exceptional product-market fit and are scaling fast.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Why join:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dream Customers:&lt;/strong&gt; FAANG companies, Big 4 firms, and a portfolio of the world&#x27;s most notable enterprises.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tier 1 Backing:&lt;/strong&gt; Series A led by NEA, with Anthropic and Menlo Ventures. $18M raised to build a generational company.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;World-Class Team:&lt;/strong&gt; AI and security leaders from Airbnb, Microsoft, Bain, Deloitte, PwC, Brex, and Instacart.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pioneering Technology:&lt;/strong&gt; Our engineers and GRC experts work at the absolute forefront of applied AI, building agentic systems that will define the future of compliance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hyper-Growth:&lt;/strong&gt; 10x ARR growth in the last year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Competitive Compensation &amp;amp; Equity.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The role&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You will build AI systems designed to outperform the world&#x27;s leading experts in Governance, Risk, and Compliance. Not research. Not prototypes. Production systems with a fanatical focus on accuracy, explainability, and responsible design. You will own the AI-native products that set a new global standard for GRC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We use an in-person work model and offer relocation assistance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you&#x27;ll do&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Build &amp;amp; fine-tune models.&lt;/strong&gt; Fine-tune foundation models on proprietary data and implement novel techniques to achieve world-class accuracy on complex GRC tasks.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Develop AI-native workflows.&lt;/strong&gt; Build sophisticated, multi-step agentic workflows that automate complex GRC processes — from risk assessment to compliance monitoring to evidence collection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Champion responsible AI.&lt;/strong&gt; Implement and pioneer methods for AI explainability and safety. Our systems must be transparent, auditable, and fair. This is non-negotiable in our domain.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Drive innovation.&lt;/strong&gt; Rapidly prototype, evaluate, and integrate state-of-the-art research (agents, RAG, new architectures) into reliable, production-grade features.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Representative projects&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Build an AI agent that analyzes thousands of regulatory documents and internal controls, identifying compliance gaps with higher accuracy than a team of human experts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Develop an explainable AI system for risk assessment, allowing auditors and executives to understand and trust the AI&#x27;s reasoning on high-stakes decisions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Build an advanced RAG pipeline over a massive corpus of unstructured company data to produce precise, verifiable assessments against complex compliance requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Partner with GRC subject matter experts to create ground-truth datasets for tasks like third-party risk evaluation, then fine-tune models that become the industry standard.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you have&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3+ years&lt;/strong&gt; in an applied AI or machine learning engineering role.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proven product sense.&lt;/strong&gt; You&#x27;ve shipped reliable, production-scale ML products. You know how to use offline evaluation and online experimentation to achieve high-performance results.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hands-on applied AI expertise.&lt;/strong&gt; Direct experience building with LLMs — fine-tuning, RAG, and agentic systems. Not theoretical. You&#x27;ve put these into production.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;High agency.&lt;/strong&gt; You take full ownership of outcomes, move with a bias for action, and have a relentless drive for world-class accuracy. You see constraints as design problems, not blockers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Strong communication.&lt;/strong&gt; You can work closely with security and GRC research counterparts...

---

## Apply

[Apply for this position](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zania/8cc549cb-4975-468d-bcf4-4d6ee81e6f2d)

---

## About zania


[View company profile →](/companies/zania)