Senior Machine Learning Engineer (fraud)

Affirm Affirm · Fintech · Canada · Remote · Checkout

Senior Machine Learning Engineer focused on building and improving real-time fraud prediction models for a fintech company. Responsibilities include developing new models, scaling feature pipelines, prototyping, productionizing models, and monitoring their health. Requires experience in ML model development, production deployment, and handling tabular/graph/behavioral data.

What you'd actually do

  1. You will lead development of new fraud prediction models using a mix of approaches for tabular, graph, and behavioral data
  2. You will build and scale feature pipelines and training datasets from proprietary and third-party signals, partnering with data and platform teams when needed.
  3. You will prototype new modeling ideas and features, run offline experiments, and drive the best-performing approaches into production with appropriate risk controls.
  4. You productionize models: integrate into batch and/or real-time decision systems, and improve reliability, latency, and operational robustness.
  5. You will instrument and monitor model and data health, and help define retraining/backtesting workflows as fraud patterns evolve.

Skills

Required

  • 6+ years experience researching, training, tuning and launching ML models at scale
  • Track record of delivering high impact machine learning models in a low latency live setting
  • Strong Python skills and experience writing production-quality code.
  • Experience building and evaluating models for tabular classification problems (preferably gradient-boosted decision trees like LightGBM/XGBoost/CatBoost, or similar).
  • Experience with a deep learning framework (PyTorch preferred).
  • Experience with ML lifecycle tooling for training orchestration, experimentation, and model monitoring (e.g., Kubeflow, Airflow, MLflow, or equivalent internal platforms).
  • Experience mastering taking a simple problem or business scenario into a solution that interacts with multiple software components, and executing on it by writing clear, easily understood, well tested and extensible code.
  • Comfortable navigating a large code base, debugging others' code, and providing feedback to other engineers through code reviews.

Nice to have

  • Relevant PhD can count for up to 2 years of experience.
  • Experience with distributed data processing or parallel compute frameworks (Spark preferred; Ray/Dask or similar).
  • Proficient in using AI-powered developer tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, or similar) to accelerate iteration, debugging, and code quality as part of day-to-day development workflows.

What the JD emphasized

  • lead development
  • build and scale
  • drive the best-performing approaches into production
  • productionize models
  • instrument and monitor model and data health
  • foundational improvements
  • 6+ years experience researching, training, tuning and launching ML models at scale
  • delivering high impact machine learning models in a low latency live setting
  • production-quality code
  • building and evaluating models for tabular classification problems
  • deep learning framework
  • distributed data processing or parallel compute frameworks
  • ML lifecycle tooling
  • taking a simple problem or business scenario into a solution that interacts with multiple software components
  • navigating a large code base, debugging others' code, and providing feedback to other engineers through code reviews

Other signals

  • productionizing models
  • real-time transaction decisions
  • fraud patterns evolve
  • scale feature pipelines and training datasets