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About This Role
ATHENS POSITION DETAILS
Position Title:
Senior Claims Examiner
Department:
Workers’ Compensation California
Reports To:
Claims Supervisor
FLSA Status:
Non\-Exempt
Job Grade:
12
Career Ladder:
Next step in progression could include Lead Senior Claims Examiner or Claims Supervisor
ATHENS ADMINISTRATORS
Explore the Athens Administrators difference: We have been dynamic, innovative leaders in claims administration since our founding in 1976\. We foster an environment where employees not only thrive but consistently recognize Athens as a “Best Place to Work.” Immerse yourself in our engaging, supportive, and inclusive culture, offering opportunities for continuous professional growth. Join our nationwide family\-owned company in Workers' Compensation, Property \& Casualty, Program Business, and Managed Care. Embrace a change and come make an impact with the Athens Administrators family today!
POSITION SUMMARY
Athens Administrators has an immediate need for a full\-time Senior Claims Examiner to support our workers compensation offices and can be located anywhere in the state of California, however, employees who live less than 26 miles from the Concord, CA or Orange, CA offices are required to work once a week in the office on a day determined by their supervisor between Tuesday – Thursday. The remaining days can be worked remotely if technical requirements are met, and the employee resides in California. Athens offices are open for business Monday\-Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. local time. The schedule for this position is Monday\-Friday at 37\.5 hours a week with the option of a flex schedule.
The Senior Claims Examiner will adjust workers’ compensation claims from inception through settlement and closure, ensuring timely processing of claims and payment of benefits, managing, and directing medical treatment, setting reserves, and negotiating settlements. The Senior Claims Examiner will adjust workers’ compensation claims from inception through settlement and closure, ensuring timely processing of claims and payment of benefits, managing, and directing medical treatment, setting reserves, and negotiating settlements.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
Our new hire should have the skills, ability, and judgment to perform the following essential job duties and responsibilities with or without reasonable accommodation. Additional duties may be assigned:
- Establish contact with employer to review issues
- Respond to inquiries from the employer, employee, doctors, and attorneys
- Establish and maintain appropriate reserves
- Review legal correspondence and medical reports
- Evaluate and approve medical procedures and treatment
- Administer benefits and ensure appropriateness of all payments
- Investigate coverage, liability, and monetary value of claim
- Review medical and legal bills for appropriateness
- Discuss appropriateness of medical treatment with medical case manager
- Determine compensability
- Monitor and assist litigation
- Negotiate settlement of claim, liens, rehabilitation plans, etc.
- Prepare and present reports to clients
- Appropriately close claims
- Help resolve client billing and payment inquiries
- Investigate complaints from injured workers
- Document and code the claim files and claims system with all relevant information
- Maintain and update action plans within specified time frames
- Provide direction to Claims Assistants and Claims Technicians and assist with training, coaching, and mentoring as needed for them to support daily claims tasks
- Contact with employers, employees, attorneys, doctors, vendors, and other parties
- Provide customer service and support to clients and claimants
- Work collaboratively with attorneys to draft settlements and assist with litigation strategies
- Negotiate settlements
- Authorize and negotiate cost of medical treatment and supplies
- Internal communication with staff
- Prepare professional, well written correspondence and other communications
ESSENTIAL POSITION REQUIREMENTSThe requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. While it does not encompass all job requirements, it is meant to give you a solid understanding of expectations.
- High School Diploma or equivalent (GED) required for all positions
+ AA/AS or BA/BS preferred but not required
- Administrators Certificate from Self\-Insurance Plans will be required within one year of employment if not already obtained
- Must possess a current Experienced Indemnity Claims Adjuster Designation, provided by an insurer, as defined in California Code of Regulations, Title 10, Chapter 5, Subchapter 3, Section 2592\.01(f)
- 3\+ years recent workers compensation claims handling experience required
- At least 5 years of workers compensation claims experience preferred
- Solid knowledge of workers compensation laws, policies, and procedures’
- Completion of IEA or equivalent courses
- Proficiency in determining case value and negotiating settlements
- Understanding of medical and legal terminology
- Mathematical calculating skills
- Well\-developed verbal and written communication skills with strong attention to detail
- Excellent organizational skills and ability to multi\-task
- Ability to type quickly, accurately and for prolonged periods
- Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite
+ Ability to learn additional computer programs
- Reasoning ability, including problem\-solving and analytical skills, i.e., proven ability to research and analyze facts, identify issues, and make appropriate recommendations and solutions for resolution
- Ability to be trustworthy, dependable, and team\-oriented for fellow employees and the organization
- Seeks to include innovative strategies and methods to provide a high level of commitment to service and results
- Ability to demonstrate care and concern for fellow team members and clients in a professional and friendly manner
- Acts with integrity in difficult or challenging situations and is a trustworthy, dependable contributor.
- Athens’ operations involve handling confidential, proprietary, and highly sensitive information, such as health records, client financials, and other personal data. Therefore, maintaining honesty and integrity is essential for all roles within the company.
- Must be able to reliably commute to meetings and events as required by this position
APPLY WITH US
We look forward to learning about YOU! If you believe in our core values of honesty and integrity, a commitment to service and results, and a caring family culture, we invite you to apply with us. Please submit your resume and application directly through our website at http://www.athensadmin.com/careers/job\-openings Feel free to include a cover letter if you’d like to share any other details. All applications received are reviewed by our in\-house Corporate Recruitment team. The Company will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with the Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Applicants can learn more about the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Act, including their rights, by clicking on the following link: https://dcba.lacounty.gov/wp\-content/uploads/2024/08/FCOE\-Official\-Notice\-Eng\-Final\-8\.30\.2024\.pdf
This description portrays in general terms the type and levels of work performed and is not intended to be all\-inclusive or represent specific duties of any one incumbent. The knowledge, skills, and abilities may be acquired through a combination of formal schooling, self\-education, prior experience, or on\-the\-job training.
Athens Administrators is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, sex, age, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, citizenship status, veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. We prohibit discrimination in decisions concerning recruitment, hiring, compensation, benefits, training, termination, promotions, or any other condition of employment or career development.
THANK YOU!
We look forward to reviewing your information. We understand that applying for jobs may not be the most enjoyable task, so we genuinely appreciate the time you've dedicated. Don’t forget to check out our website at www.athensadmin.com as well as our LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Facebook pages!
Athens Administrators is dedicated to fair and equitable compensation for our employees that is both competitive and reflective of the market. The estimated rate of pay can vary depending on skills, knowledge, abilities, location, labor market trends, experience, education including applicable licenses \& certifications, etc. Our ranges may be modified at any time. In addition, eligible employees may be considered annually for discretionary salary adjustments and/or incentive payments. We offer a variety of benefit plans including Medical, Vision, Dental, Life and AD\&D, Long Term Care, Critical Care, Accidental, Hospital Indemnity, HSA \& FSA options, 401k (and Roth), Company\-Paid STD \& LTD and more! Further information about our comprehensive benefits package may be found on our website at https://www.athensadmin.com/careers/why\-work\-here
Salary Context
This $104K-$114K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $100K across 15465 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 26,159 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 91% of the market. At Athens Administrators, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $166,983 based on 13,781 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($109K) sits 35% below the category median. Disclosed range: $104K to $114K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Architect ($292,900). By seniority level: Entry: $76,880; Mid: $131,300; Senior: $227,400; Director: $244,288; VP: $234,620.
Athens Administrators AI Hiring
Athens Administrators has 2 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Orange, CA, US, Concord, CA, US. Compensation range: $64K - $114K.
Remote Work Context
Remote AI roles pay a median of $156,000 across 1,221 positions. About 7% of all AI roles offer remote work.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 26,159 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 2,416 entry-level, 16,247 mid-level, 5,153 senior, and 2,343 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 7% of the market (1,863 positions). The remaining 24,200 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 28 roles); AI Architect ($292,900 median, 108 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 19 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 26,159 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (23,752), AI Software Engineer (598), AI Product Manager (594). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (2,416) are outnumbered by mid-level (16,247) and senior (5,153) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 2,343 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 7% of all AI roles (1,863 positions), with 24,200 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $184,000. Top-quartile roles start at $244,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $309,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $122,200. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Rag (16,749 postings), Aws (8,932 postings), Rust (7,660 postings), Python (3,815 postings), Azure (2,678 postings), Gcp (2,247 postings), Prompt Engineering (1,469 postings), Openai (1,269 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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