Lead Machine Learning Engineer

FICO; San Diego (CA); Hybrid; USD 122,500 - 192,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Inclusive culture

Competitive compensation

Learning opportunities

Work-life balance

Job summary

FICO seeks engineers and scientists to advance predictive analytics on real-time cloud platforms. You will contribute to FICO products, deploying advanced ML/AI in scalable architectures and work with cross-functional teams to drive analytic innovation.

You will mentor junior engineers, collaborate across disciplines, and travel as needed. The role offers highly competitive compensation and a strong focus on ethics and governance in regulated domains.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in CS/engineering/physics or related field.
• Experience with analytic software, data engineering, or ML.
• Familiar with cloud-based and distributed architectures.

Responsibilities

• Develop and scale distributed ML architectures and pipelines.
• Integrate ML technologies and ensure quality controls and governance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deploy analytic models.
• Mentor junior engineers and scientists.
• Travel as required.

Education

MS or Ph.D. degree in computer science, engineering, physics, or related technical field

Tools

C/C++

Java

Python

Distributed computing

SQL/NoSQL

Linux

Job description

In this role, you will be a member of a highly talented team of engineers and scientists enabling advanced predictive models deployed into cloud-based real-time transaction processing systems. You will be a contributor to FICO products and strategic initiatives that involve analytic innovation with a strong focus on building, testing, and deploying advanced analytics for the FICO Platform. You will have the opportunity to build industry leading solutions and stay at the forefront of modern AI and ML technologies.

What You7ll Contribute

• Contribute to the requirements and development of advanced distributed ML architectures, pipelines, tools, infrastructure, and algorithms that scale up to support both production execution and development of real-time predictive analytics on large volumes of high-throughput transactional data.
• Integrate and evaluate advanced ML technologies, platforms and frameworks. Balance performance and cost constraints. Establish strong processes, quality controls, and ethical standards for PII and IP protection, analytic development, and product delivery.
• Interact and collaborate with cross functional teams (Software Development, QA, Professional Services, IT, Product Management, Sales, and Product Support), drive and influence analytic and software designs decisions to ensure successful integration of analytic models into FICO Platform.
• Mentor junior engineers and scientists.
• Travel and work outside of normal business hours as business dictates.

What We7re Seeking

• M.S. or Ph.D. degree in computer science, engineering, physics, or a related technical field
• Industry experience with a proven success record in analytic software, data engineering, or machine learning; experience working with cloud-based and distributed architectures, large real-world datasets, and production software or analytics.
• Strong competency in two or more programming languages such as C, C++, Java, or Python; experience working with distributed computing platforms and frameworks, SQL and no-SQL databases.
• Strong knowledge of computer science fundamentals, software design principles, and best practices such as agile development, unit testing, version control, and continuous integration.
• Experience working in Linux environment and working proficiency with Linux scripting languages.
• Experience building predictive analytic models and data analysis; working knowledge of machine learning fundamentals, mathematics, statistics, and algorithms.
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to mentor engineers, influence technical direction, and collaborate across disciplines.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with testing frameworks, A/B testing, performance optimization, and production monitoring and observability practices (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry).
• Familiarity with AI governance practices: model explainability, prompt versioning, evaluation logging, and audit-readiness in regulated environments.
• Background in fintech, financial services, insurance, or other regulated domains where model accountability and compliance are paramount.

Our Offer to You

• An inclusive culture strongly reflecting our core values: Act Like an Owner, Delight Our Customers and Earn the Respect of Others.
• The opportunity to make an impact and develop professionally by leveraging your unique strengths and participating in valuable learning experiences.
• Highly competitive compensation, benefits and rewards programs that encourage you to bring your best every day and be recognized for doing so.
• An engaging, people-first work environment offering work/life balance, employee resource groups, and social events to promote interaction and camaraderie.
• The targeted base pay range for this role is: $122,500 to $192,500 with this range reflecting differences in candidate knowledge, skills and experience.