[Hiring] Staff Machine Learning Engineer @Payabli

Role Description

Payabli is looking for a Staff Machine Learning Engineer to set the technical direction for ML at Payabli. A few models are already live and driving real decisions, but we want to build a broad portfolio of models that make payments smarter and easier.

• Set the technical direction for Payabli's model portfolio, maturing existing models and building new ones across the payments lifecycle.
• Establish the ML foundations the team will build on: experimentation workflows, model monitoring, drift detection, performance benchmarking, and incident response.
• Translate ambiguous payments problems into well-scoped modeling opportunities, and model performance into business terms.
• Raise the technical bar through influence and example: mentor ML engineers and set practices for the future team.
• Partner with product, engineering, and risk operations to own and prioritize the ML roadmap.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of ML engineering experience, with 4+ years building and shipping production models that drive real business decisions.
• A track record of owning modeling architecture and seeing big, hard-to-reverse decisions through to production.
• Breadth across model types and problem framing.
• Proven experience taking models from prototype to production and owning them post-launch.
• Deep grasp of modeling tradeoffs: precision/recall vs. operational cost, explainability, latency, and regulatory/compliance considerations.
• Experience establishing ML processes and infrastructure that a growing team inherits.
• A high technical bar set through influence and example.
• Ability to communicate model behavior and business impact to non-ML stakeholders.
• Comfortable in a fast-moving startup environment; bias toward shipping.

Requirements

• Payments, fintech, or lending experience: chargebacks, merchant risk, KYC/KYB, authorization/routing, or similar domains.
• Familiarity with AWS ML tools (e.g. SageMaker), and experience with feature stores, training/inference pipelines, and MLOps tooling.
• An interest in growing into people leadership as the function scales.

Benefits

• Competitive salary.
• Stock options with the potential to unlock more equity as we grow.
• Flexible PTO and paid parental leave.
• Medical, dental, & vision insurance.
• 401K, HSA, pre-tax savings programs.