Principal Research Engineer

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Principal Research Engineer - AI Innovation and Development

Apply locations San Diego, CA time type Full time posted on Posted 3 Days Ago job requisition id 30232

FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading global analytics software company, helping businesses in 100+ countries make better decisions. Join our world-class team today and fulfill your career potential!

The Opportunity

"As a Principal Research Engineer, you’ll have a unique opportunity to build, train and deploy FICO’s diverse range of Foundational AI models. As part of our dynamic team, your expertise will play a crucial role in shaping the technology and architecture of our latest innovations, which encompasses domains across natural language, transactional, speech, vision and other modalities." – Senior Director, AI Innovation and Development.

What You’ll Contribute

• Design and advance AI models and system innovations in close collaboration with cross-functional teams, including Product Management, Software Engineering, and Pre-Sales—to ensure high-quality performance and delivery.

• Develop Focused Language Models , which are LLMs designed to solve our customers’ business problems in areas such as fraud, collections, financial services operations, financial education and FICO Platform software. Implement novel architectures (transformers and others), optimizing distributed training pipelines (Pytorch/CUDA) for efficient pre and post training, building domain specific datasets and business-relevant benchmarks.

• Communicating to high-level stakeholders internally and externally.

• Conduct hands-on analysis of large historical datasets to identify the best modeling techniques, demonstrating expertise in various algorithms and modeling processes with cutting-edge machine learning techniques.

• Guide and mentor scientists to support their career development.

• Drive innovation and inorganic growth of new and existing products through offering and promoting refined ideas.

What We’re Seeking

• Excellent software engineering skills, experience in Python, Rust and/or C++.

• Experience with pre/post training of modern AI architectures (transformers, encoders, decoders, diffusion).

• Real-world experience with distributed systems and concurrency.

• Experience with Reinforcement Learning (RL), Simulation and/or Synthetic Data Generation.

• Prior experience managing, scaling and delivering high-quality, on-time AI/ML projects.

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related fields.

• Requires full-time, on-site presence at the FICO office in San Diego, CA.

• Willingness to travel up to 10%.

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: $167,000 to $262,000 with this range reflecting differences in candidate knowledge, skills and experience.
  

Why Make a Move to FICO?

At FICO, you can develop your career with a leading organization in one of the fastest-growing fields in technology today – Big Data analytics. You’ll play a part in our commitment to help businesses use data to improve every choice they make, using advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, optimization, and much more.

FICO makes a real difference in the way businesses operate worldwide:

• Credit Scoring — FICO Scores are used by 90 of the top 100 US lenders.

• Fraud Detection and Security — 4 billion payment cards globally are protected by FICO fraud systems.

• Lending — 3/4 of US mortgages are approved using the FICO Score.

Global trends toward digital transformation have created tremendous demand for FICO’s solutions, placing us among the world’s top 100 software companies by revenue. We help many of the world’s largest banks, insurers, retailers, telecommunications providers and other firms reach a new level of success. Our success is dependent on really talented people – just like you – who thrive on the collaboration and innovation that’s nurtured by a diverse and inclusive environment. We’ll provide the support you need, while ensuring you have the freedom to develop your skills and grow your career. Join FICO and help change the way business thinks!

Learn more about how you can fulfil your potential at

FICO promotes a culture of inclusion and seeks to attract a diverse set of candidates for each job opportunity. We are an equal employment opportunity employer and we’re proud to offer employment and advancement opportunities to all candidates without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. Research has shown that women and candidates from underrepresented communities may not apply for an opportunity if they don’t meet all stated qualifications. While our qualifications are clearly related to role success, each candidate’s profile is unique and strengths in certain skill and/or experience areas can be equally effective. If you believe you have many, but not necessarily all, of the stated qualifications we encourage you to apply.

Information submitted with your application is subject to the FICO Privacy policy at

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FICO (NYSE: FICO) is a leading global analytics software company, helping businesses in 100+ countries make better decisions. Join our world-class team today and fulfil your career potential!

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