Engineering & Applied AI Lead

Spire - Pay with Spire, Inc.; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity (stock options)

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Discretionary PTO

401(k)

Learning and development support

Job summary

Pay With Spire is seeking an Engineering & Applied AI Lead to serve as the senior technical authority, coding hands-on while guiding a talented team and shaping AI in our core platform. You will own architecture for payments, microservices, APIs, and SDKs, and drive AI-enabled development across the engineering org.

You will mentor engineers, lead architecture reviews, and steer AI tool adoption to accelerate shipping while ensuring secure, scalable solutions in payments.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in software engineering, including 2+ in a tech lead, senior architect, or applied AI role.
• Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud-native design on Azure.
• A track record of rolling out AI dev tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar) in a production team.
• Deep knowledge of microservices, REST APIs, event-driven systems, and OAuth2.
• SQL and NoSQL design and performance tuning at scale.
• Strong TDD and automated testing discipline.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
• Mobile SDK experience (Kotlin and/or Swift) strongly preferred.
• You've shipped production ML in payments or fintech (risk scoring, anomaly detection, NLP, or similar).
• You've worked with ACH, settlement, tokenization, or card network APIs.
• You know PCI DSS from a developer's perspective.

Responsibilities

• Lead our Software Engineers day to day: assign work, review code, unblock, and own delivery quality.
• Own the architecture of our core platform, including payment processing, microservices, APIs, mobile SDKs, and ACH and card network integrations.
• Champion AI-assisted development across engineering, choosing and rolling out the tools and workflows that raise velocity and code quality.
• Find and build applied AI/ML opportunities in our product: risk scoring, transaction intelligence, consumer behavior modeling, and operations automation.
• Set the bar on engineering practice: TDD/BDD, automated testing, CI/CD on Azure DevOps, and secure OAuth2 integrations.
• Design SQL and NoSQL data models built for scale.
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership on sprint planning, backlog refinement, and architecture reviews.
• Lead technical due diligence on new integrations and vendor APIs.
• Mentor engineers and help them grow.

Skills

AI/ML in payments

Microservices

REST APIs

OAuth2

TDD/Automated testing

Event-driven architecture

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering

Tools

Azure DevOps

CI/CD

GitHub Copilot

Cursor

Job description

Most payment platforms add AI as an afterthought. We want someone who will build it into how we engineer from day one.

Pay With Spire is a growth-stage fintech company changing in-store payments with a merchant-branded, pay-by-bank platform. Merchants lower transaction costs and build loyalty, and consumers get a seamless checkout, with no disruption to existing point-of-sale systems.

We're looking for an Engineering & Applied AI Lead to be our senior technical authority: someone who still writes code, leads a talented development team, and knows how to use AI to help a lean team ship faster and better.

What you'll do

• Lead our Software Engineers day to day: assign work, review code, unblock, and own delivery quality
• Own the architecture of our core platform, including payment processing, microservices, APIs, mobile SDKs, and ACH and card network integrations
• Champion AI-assisted development across engineering, choosing and rolling out the tools and workflows that raise velocity and code quality
• Find and build applied AI/ML opportunities in our product: risk scoring, transaction intelligence, consumer behavior modeling, and operations automation
• Set the bar on engineering practice: TDD/BDD, automated testing, CI/CD on Azure DevOps, and secure OAuth2 integrations
• Design SQL and NoSQL data models built for scale
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership on sprint planning, backlog refinement, and architecture reviews
• Lead technical due diligence on new integrations and vendor APIs
• Mentor engineers and help them grow

What you bring

• 7+ years in software engineering, including 2+ in a tech lead, senior architect, or applied AI role
• Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud-native design on Azure
• A track record of rolling out AI dev tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar) in a production team
• Deep knowledge of microservices, REST APIs, event-driven systems, and OAuth2
• SQL and NoSQL design and performance tuning at scale
• Strong TDD and automated testing discipline
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering
• Mobile SDK experience (Kotlin and/or Swift) strongly preferred
• You've shipped production ML in payments or fintech (risk scoring, anomaly detection, NLP, or similar)
• You've worked with ACH, settlement, tokenization, or card network APIs
• You know PCI DSS from a developer's perspective

What we offer

• Competitive salary plus equity (stock options, subject to board approval)
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Discretionary PTO
• 401(k)
• Learning and development support
• A real seat at the table at a company that's moving fast

Pay With Spire is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.