- Job title
- Founding Underwriter
- Job location
- San Francisco, CA, US
- Job description
- ## About Hedge
Hedge is building an AI native insurance company.
We are starting with a wholesale brokerage and MGU for specialty commercial risk. Insurance is a massive market that still runs on inboxes, PDFs, spreadsheets, portals, and phone calls. We think the next great insurance company will look very different.
Hedge is built by a small team with deep insurance and company-building experience. We are early, well-backed, and moving quickly. Every person who joins now will help shape the company, the product, and the underwriting culture from the ground up.
## The Role
As our founding underwriter, you will help build the core underwriting function at Hedge.
You will decide what we write, how we price it, how brokers work with us, and what systems we build around the underwriting workflow. You will work directly with the founders on appetite, guidelines, broker relationships, capacity, claims, compliance, and product.
This is a role for someone who wants ownership, speed, and meaningful upside. Not a role for someone looking to inherit a finished playbook.
## What You’ll Do
* Build the underwriting playbook for our first programs
* Review submissions, price risk, quote accounts, and manage the book
* Define appetite, guidelines, exclusions, referrals, and authority
* Work directly with wholesale brokers and distribution partners
* Partner with capacity providers, actuaries, claims, legal, and compliance
* Help turn underwriting judgment into workflows, rules, and software
* Shape the broker experience from day one
## What We Value
**Ownership:** You take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
**Judgment:** You know how to balance growth, risk selection, pricing, and portfolio quality.
**Pace:** You are comfortable moving quickly without a big-company process around every decision.
**Clarity:** You communicate plainly with brokers, partners, regulators, and the team.
## What You Bring
* 5+ years of commercial P&C underwriting experience
* Experience in specialty, E&S, wholesale, program, MGU, or captive markets
* Strong broker-facing instincts
* Clear judgment on risk, pricing, terms, and coverage
* Comfort building from zero
* Interest in using software, data, and automation to make underwriting faster and better
## Nice to Have
* Experience launching a program, MGU, product, or underwriting unit
* Existing wholesale broker relationships
* Familiarity with delegated authority, fronting carriers, reinsurance, or program management
* Experience in casualty, GL, E&O, cyber, professional liability, or other specialty lines
## What We Offer
* In office in San Francisco
* Six days a week with a small, high-urgency team
* Salary, benefits, and significant equity
* Direct influence over the underwriting strategy, product, and company direction
* A chance to build one of the defining insurance companies of the next decade