Staff Applied AI Scientist, Decision Systems

Mulligan Funding, LLC; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage

401k retirement plan with company matching

Generous paid time off

Company-paid life insurance

Professional development stipend

Job summary

A leading financial technology company in San Diego is seeking a Staff Applied AI Scientist focusing on Decision Systems. The role involves designing logic for AI decision-making in production environments, optimizing trade-offs in decision processes, and ensuring systems align with business goals. Candidates should have significant experience in AI product systems, a strong statistical background, and a relevant master's degree. This position offers a diverse benefits package, promoting a supportive and inclusive work environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in applied data science, 3 years on AI-enabled product systems.
• Demonstrated experience in designing production decision systems.
• Strong foundation in statistics and decision theory is essential.

Responsibilities

• Design structured AI reasoning frameworks translating credit policy into decision logic.
• Define decision hierarchies for underwriting and collections workflows.
• Analyze override behavior and update decision logic for system performance.

Skills

AI product systems design

Data science

Statistics

Decision theory

Model evaluation

Risk analysis

Education

Master’s degree in Statistics, Applied Mathematics or related field

Job description

Overview

Headquartered in San Diego, Mulligan Funding serves as a leading provider of working capital (up to $5M) to the small and medium-sized businesses that fuel our country. Since 2008 we have prided ourselves on a collaborative, innovative, and customer-focused approach. We are experiencing growth and are looking to add to our people-first culture with highly motivated and results-oriented professionals, to push the limits of what’s possible while creating value for all of our partners.

As our Staff Applied AI Scientist focused on Decision Systems, you will design the logic behind how AI makes decisions inside real production workflows. This is not a research role and it is not a pure engineering role. You will sit at the intersection of business strategy, risk, and applied AI to ensure our decision systems are intelligent, calibrated, and economically aligned. Engineers will deploy the systems. You will define the decision intelligence that powers them. If you are excited about turning business judgment into structured, production-ready AI logic that directly impacts profitability, this role is for you.

What You Will Work On

• Designing and formalizing structured AI reasoning frameworks that translate credit policy, risk strategy, and operational heuristics into production-ready decision logic
• Defining multi-layer decision hierarchies across underwriting, collections, fraud detection, pricing optimization, and sales routing workflows, including conflict resolution logic when signals disagree
• Establishing structured output standards for agent-based systems so AI recommendations are interpretable, consistent, and actionable
• Designing confidence scoring methodologies for AI-assisted decisions and calibrating routing thresholds across auto-approve, escalation, human review, and decline paths
• Optimizing trade-offs across risk exposure, approval rates, speed to decision, unit economics, and operational capacity
• Analyzing override behavior and feedback loops to refine decision logic and improve system performance over time
• Building evaluation datasets to test reasoning quality prior to deployment and defining clear production acceptance criteria
• Benchmarking performance across decision domains and establishing monitoring standards to detect drift, degradation, bias, or inconsistency in AI outputs
• Partnering with Engineering and MLOps to ensure monitoring, reporting, and feedback mechanisms are embedded in production systems
• Supporting governance, audit, and compliance documentation to ensure decisions are explainable and defensible in a regulated environment
• Assessing potential bias and unintended impact across workflows and partnering with Risk, Compliance, and Legal on responsible deployment
• Quantifying business impact across loss rates, recovery performance, operational cost per file, funnel conversion, and cycle time, and aligning decision systems with portfolio economics and strategic objectives

What This Role Is Not

• Ownership of API development, integration pipelines, or infrastructure
• Primary responsibility for MLOps tooling or production orchestration code
• An academic or purely research-focused AI position
• A general program management or governance-only role disconnected from production impact

What You Bring

• Eight or more years of experience in applied data science, including at least three years working on AI-enabled product systems. Experience in AI product systems is required
• Demonstrated experience designing, calibrating, and validating production decision systems
• Experience translating domain expertise into structured logic frameworks that can be deployed in operational environments
• Strong foundation in statistics, probability, and decision theory
• Experience evaluating and tuning model outputs, including large language model reasoning outputs
• Experience working in regulated or risk-sensitive environments preferred. Background in fintech, lending, financial services, or other high-consequence decision environments strongly preferred
• Master’s degree in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Economics, Computer Science, Engineering, or related quantitative discipline required. PhD preferred

Why Join The Team

• This role offers the opportunity to shape how AI makes decisions across an entire lending platform
• The work directly influences portfolio performance, unit economics, and operational strategy
• You will operate in a company that is intentionally building AI into its core workflows, not experimenting at the margins
• The systems you design will be durable, measurable, explainable, and central to the company’s long-term competitive advantage

We Offer

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with multiple plan options to support you and your family
• A 401k retirement plan with company matching contributions to help you build long-term financial security
• Generous paid time off and paid holidays to support balance and flexibility
• Company-paid life insurance and disability coverage for additional protection and peace of mind
• Flexible Spending Account and Health Savings Account options to maximize tax advantages
• A Lifestyle Spending Account to support wellness and fitness-related expenses
• A professional development stipend to encourage continued learning and growth
• An employee referral program that rewards you for helping us build a strong team
• Company events and initiatives that foster collaboration, inclusion, and connection

Mulligan Funding is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) and takes great pride in building a diverse work environment. Qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to age, race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or veteran status.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

A reasonable estimate of the salary range for this role is $180,000 to $250,00 per year. In order to provide a competitive compensation package, Mulligan Funding takes into account a variety of factors including but not limited to market compensation data, relevant experience, skills, education, and certifications.