Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Risk AI/ML

Coinbase Careers Page

3h • Hybrid

About The Position

The Risk AI/ML team has a critical mission: to foster business growth by effectively managing the financial threats impacting the business and our users. We are on the front lines, building the flexible, scalable, and intelligent systems required to detect and prevent fraud, scams, and account takeovers at scale. As a member of this team, you will build and deploy the sophisticated AI/ML models that power our real-time, near-real-time, and scheduled risk-detection workflows. You will collaborate closely with Platform, Product, Analyst, and Ops teams to uncover new fraud patterns, fight baddies, and continuously improve our defensive capabilities, protecting our good users and the open financial system.
We are looking for a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer to lead the design and implementation of advanced AI/ML models & systems that power our critical risk and fraud-fighting platforms. This role is essential to protecting our good customers by harnessing diverse and extensive data sources, including the blockchain, to grant millions of individuals access to cryptocurrency while simultaneously identifying and thwarting malicious entities. Your work will directly stop fraud, prevent account takeovers, and fight scams.
You will operate as both a hands-on technical contributor and AI/ML applied science leader of complex initiatives, setting technical direction across teams, mentoring senior engineers, and ensuring that our AI/ML solutions are robust, efficient, and aligned with company strategy.

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional experience in software engineering and/or AI/ML, including significant experience deploying AI/ML systems into production.
• Passion & Values: A passion for building an open financial system that connects the world and a strong desire to protect good users from bad actors. You are motivated by the challenges of fighting fraud, detecting scams, preventing account takeovers, and generally thwarting "baddies." You exhibit our core cultural values: add positive energy, communicate clearly, be curious, and be a builder.
• Deep AI/ML Expertise: Expertise in one or more areas of applied AI/ML (e.g., Risk ML, Gradient Boosting trees, large-scale deep learning, NLP/LLMs, computer vision, recommender systems, reinforcement learning, GNNs).
• Strong Technical & Coding Skills: Strong coding skills (e.g., Python) with deep experience in AI/ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc). Experience building backend systems at scale with a focus on data processing, AI/ML, or analytics.
• Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-team technical initiatives and deliver impactful AI/ML solutions at scale.
• Strategic Communication: Strong communication and leadership skills, with experience influencing technical direction across engineering, product, and leadership teams.
• Mentorship: A proven track record of mentoring senior engineers and raising the technical bar on engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, AI/ML, Data Mining, Statistics, or related technical field.
• Knowledge of modern data and AI/ML infrastructure (e.g., Apache Airflow, Spark, Flink, Kafka/Kinesis, Snowflake, Hadoop, Hive).
• Familiarity with MLOps best practices, including monitoring, retraining, and continuous improvement of production models.
• Experience with model interpretability and responsible AI.
• Experience with data analysis and visualization.

Responsibilities

• Lead Strategic AI/ML Initiatives: Drive the end-to-end design and deployment of AI/ML models and systems that scale to millions of users. You will investigate and harness cutting-edge methodologies (e.g., large-scale deep learning, LLMs, GNNs, reinforcement learning) to address diverse challenges like fraud detection, recommender systems, feed ranking, and risk assessment.
• Architect Scalable Models & Systems: Architect and build production-grade AI/ML models & pipelines, that enable low-latency, high-reliability predictions. You will develop and deploy robust, low-maintenance applied AI/ML solutions
• Drive Execution & Collaboration: Deliver high-quality, measurable results while managing ambiguity, prioritizing technical debt, and ensuring systems evolve with business growth. You must have solid communication skills to collaborate with and influence stakeholders with various technical and non-technical backgrounds.
• Elevate AI/ML & Engineering Excellence, Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and mentorship, elevating engineering excellence across the organization. You will help democratize access to AI/ML by creating onboarding codelabs, tools, and infrastructure to foster a culture of widespread AI/ML across the team, org and Coinbase.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior