Principal AI Architect

GoodFin, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

GoodFin, Inc. is on the lookout for a Principal AI Architect to lead innovations in wealth management through AI. This pivotal role involves developing autonomous AI systems and enhancing user experiences, ensuring financial services are accessible and personalized. Join a forward-thinking team where your expertise will shape the future of wealth creation and financial advising, all within a supportive startup environment funded by leading investors.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in AI/ML research and development.
• Strong background in LLM applications and AI orchestration.
• Expertise in designing agent-based systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop next-generation autonomous AI agents.
• Optimize integration with foundation models.
• Create explainable decision pathways for clients.

Skills

Leadership

AI/ML research

Transparency

Explainable AI

Human-AI interaction design

System architecture

Education

PhD or equivalent in Computer Science

Tools

Python

Node.js

TypeScript

FastAPI

Job description

About GoodFin

GoodFin is reimagining private wealth in the era of AI. Our mission is to empower a new generation to build wealth, starting with their investments in alternative assets.

Our AI-native platform combines a design-forward experience with a backend powered by a system of intelligent agents. We are building a future where AI unlocks financial hyperpersonalization, automation and optimization for sophisticated financial products, which are typically gated by advisors and reserved for very wealthy clients. This highly fragmented $1.25T global services market will undergo a sea change in the coming years, as trillions pass in the largest intergenerational wealth transfer to date.

In a world where most financial decisions will become automated, we believe the next category-defining wealth company will still be human-driven at its core – powered by a high-value community like our membership base of professionals, founders and investors. The next generation financial giant will be an AI-native platform that makes wealth creation seamless, personalized, and social. That’s what we’re building.

We are a rapidly growing seed startup backed by Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, Phoenix Fund, Perpetua Investment Group and angel investors from leading companies across tech and finance.

https://blog.goodfin.com/blog/from-static-to-agentic-rethinking-ai-in-wealth-management

About The Role

GoodFin is seeking a pioneering Principal AI Architect to spearhead our AI revolution. In this groundbreaking role, you will work directly with our CTO and CEO to develop next-generation autonomous AI agents and advanced LLM implementations that will transform wealth management. You will be at the forefront of developing agentic AI systems that can operate independently to analyze financial data, make recommendations, and transform how our clients interact with their investments.

As the Principal AI Architect, you will push the boundaries of what's possible with generative AI, creating custom fine-tuned models that understand complex financial concepts, can interpret multi-modal data, and deliver personalized insights to our clients. Your work will be instrumental in building AI systems that revolutionize financial services.

Internally, you'll create AI systems that amplify our team's capabilities -- from AI-powered operations to predictive analytics that inform strategic decisions. Your AI creations will work alongside human teammates as true collaborators, not just tools.

Externally, you'll revolutionize how clients experience wealth management through personalized AI advisors that eliminate common financial mistakes, anticipate needs, and deliver products and insights that were previously accessible only to the ultra-wealthy. Your work will transform private wealth by making sophisticated financial services more transparent, accessible, and personalized.

Here's What You'll Do Day-to-day

• Scale and enhance our existing GoodFin AI Concierge, our proprietary multi-agent system into a full agentic wealth platform
• Optimize our integration with foundation models while developing custom capabilities where needed
• Expand our agent workflows from basic assistance to sophisticated financial orchestration
• Develop additional neural architectures optimized specifically for financial reasoning and decision-making
• Create specialized financial agents with purpose-built capabilities beyond what's possible with general models
• Engineer a proprietary orchestration layer that enables these agents to collaborate on complex wealth decisions
• Build advanced systems to extract insights from fragmented financial documents, market data, and user signals
• Design novel evaluation frameworks that measure both quantitative performance and qualitative trust metrics
• Implement intelligence loops that enable compounding knowledge accumulation across user interactions
• Create explainable decision pathways that make agent reasoning transparent to both users and regulators
• Architect adaptive interfaces that evolve based on user behavior and preferences
• Design privacy-preserving AI systems that protect sensitive financial data while enabling personalization
• Implement regulatory compliance guardrails that ensure all agent actions adhere to financial regulations
• Collaborate with our CTO, CEO, engineers, operations team, and designers to integrate these systems into our product
• Stay at the forefront of agentic innovation, researching and implementing breakthrough techniques

Here's What We're Looking For

• PhD or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or related field
• 5+ years of experience in AI/ML research and development, ideally at leading AI labs or tech companies
• Strong background in LLM applications, multi-agent systems, and AI orchestration
• Experience applying AI in fintech, wealth management, or other sensitive domains highly valued
• Expertise in designing and implementing agent-based systems that can handle complex tasks
• Demonstrated ability to build practical business applications with transparency and explainability
• Experience with retrieval-augmented generation for knowledge-intensive domains
• Strong understanding of financial data, documents, and decision-making processes
• Background in human-AI interaction design and explainable AI
• Experience building systems that learn from user feedback and improve over time
• Deep understanding of privacy-preserving AI techniques for sensitive financial data
• Ability to translate business requirements into effective AI architectures
• Expertise in designing AI architectures that balance innovation with compliance requirements
• Strong leadership skills and experience mentoring technical teams
• Excellent communication skills to work with non-technical stakeholders
• Commitment to building AI systems that prioritize accuracy, reliability, and user trust
• Published research in AI/ML conferences or practical implementations in industry settings
• Proficiency in Python and relevant ML frameworks and libraries

The Cutting-Edge Tech You'll Work With

• Foundation models from leading providers enhanced with financial domain specialization
• Multi-agent orchestration systems for coordinating financial workflows
• Our existing AI Concierge platform with opportunities for significant enhancement
• Advanced retrieval systems for financial knowledge and regulatory compliance
• Interface design for intuitive human-AI collaboration in financial contexts
• Reinforcement learning from user feedback to continuously improve recommendations
• Privacy-preserving AI techniques for handling sensitive financial data
• Compliance frameworks to ensure adherence to financial regulations
• Evaluation systems to measure both performance and trust metrics

Compensation & Location

We offer highly competitive compensation with a base salary range of $180,000-$350,000/year, plus substantial equity ownership that reflects the senior nature of this role and its impact on our company's future.

GoodFin is based in San Francisco, CA. We prefer candidates who can work in-person in SF the majority of the time – 3 days per week at the minimum.

Join us in building the first agentic wealth platform, where multi-agent systems and specialized LLMs will personalize access to sophisticated financial services and transform the world of private wealth.

Tech Stack:

• Backend: AWS Lambda with Node.js/TypeScript and Express
• Frontend: React
• Infrastructure: AWS
• AI Backend: Python, FastAPI, LangGraph
• Vector Store: Pinecone, Faiss

About the Interview Process:

Introduction Zoom with CTO and CEO:

• Informal discussion to understand your experience, aspirations, and startup interest.
• Learn about GoodFin's agentic wealth vision and growth trajectory.

Technical Interview:

• Hands-on assessment of your agentic system design and implementation skills.
• Focus on real-world challenges in agent-orchestrated wealth management.
• Discussion of your experience with modern LLM architectures and multi-agent systems.

Team Meeting:

• Casual conversations with key team members In-person at SF office.
• Opportunity to learn about our collaborative culture.

Offer!