Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Risk Modeling

Block; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Flexible time off

Retirement savings plans

Remote work flexibility

Job summary

Block is hiring Senior and Staff Machine Learning Engineers to join their Risk Machine Learning organization, focusing on fraud detection across Cash App and Square. This role offers the opportunity to directly protect the ecosystem and enhance financial experiences for millions.

Candidates should have at least 8 years of experience in machine learning and a Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field. A generous benefits package, including remote work, medical insurance, and retirement plans, is provided.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of industry experience in machine learning or applied AI.
• Proven experience independently designing and deploying ML solutions.
• Strong familiarity with tree-based models, deep learning, or reinforcement learning.

Responsibilities

• Partner with teams to design ML-driven risk solutions.
• Own end-to-end machine learning systems.
• Lead technical decision-making within workstreams.

Skills

Machine learning

Applied AI

Data science

Communication skills

Technical decision-making

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field

Master’s or PhD preferred

Tools

Python

GCP (Vertex AI)

AWS

Tableau

Job description

Block builds simple, powerful tools that make progress towards an economy that’s truly open to all. Each of our brands unlocks different aspects of the economy for more people. Square makes commerce and financial services accessible to sellers. Cash App is the easy way to spend, send, and store money. Afterpay is transforming the way customers manage their spending over time. TIDAL is a music platform that empowers artists to thrive as entrepreneurs. Bitkey is a simple self‑custody wallet built for bitcoin. Proto is a suite of bitcoin mining products and services. Together, we’re helping build a financial system that is open to everyone. Join us.

The Role

We’re hiring Senior and Staff Machine Learning Engineers to join Block’s Risk Machine Learning organization, where teams apply ML at massive scale to detect, prevent, and reduce fraud and abuse across Cash App and Square.

This opening supports multiple senior‑level roles, with team placement determined through a collaborative matching process based on your experience, interests, and current business needs. Today, we’re growing teams focused fraud & abuse prevention, merchant risk, credit underwriting (consumer & commercial lending), buy‑now‑pay‑later decisioning, AI‑powered customer support & conversational AI, agentic automation for investigations, and model risk governance. We’d love to hear from you whether your background is in adversarial ML, NLP/LLMs, credit modeling, or model validation.

Across teams, your work will directly protect our ecosystem, reduce financial loss, and enable safe, seamless financial experiences for millions of customers, sellers, and families.

You Will

• Partner with product, engineering, data science, policy, and operations to design and productionize ML‑driven risk solutions at scale
• Own end-to‑end machine learning systems — from problem definition and modeling to deployment, monitoring, and iteration
• Lead technical decision‑making within your workstreams and influence ML strategy and planning
• Build tooling and processes that improve the speed, reliability, and impact of the ML development lifecycle
• Apply state‑of‑the‑art modeling techniques and third‑party data sources to improve detection and decision‑making
• Investigate emerging fraud, abuse, and risk patterns to proactively inform product safeguards and policy
• Collaborate closely with ML platform and engineering teams to ensure models operate reliably in real time and at scale

You Have

• 8+ years of industry experience in machine learning, applied AI, or related fields
• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field (Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Physics, Applied Math); Master’s or PhD preferred
• Proven experience independently designing, deploying, and maintaining ML solutions in production
• Strong familiarity with techniques such as tree‑based models, deep learning, transfer learning, or reinforcement learning
• Experience influencing technical direction and collaborating with cross‑functional partners at scale
• Strong communication skills, sound judgment, and an ownership mindset
• Curiosity and alignment with Block’s mission of economic empowerment

Technologies We Use and Teach

• Python (NumPy, Pandas, scikit‑learn, XGBoost, PyTorch, TensorFlow/Keras)
• PySpark, MLflow, workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Prefect)
• GCP (Vertex AI), AWS
• Snowflake, MySQL, Tableau, Mode
• Containerization, CI/CD, and production ML best practices

Every benefit we offer is designed with one goal: empowering you to do the best work of your career while building the life you want. Remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning are just some of our offering.

Check out our other benefits at Block.