Staff Engineer - Machine Learning

About the team

Money generates incredibly rich behavioural data.

At slice, we're building the intelligence layer that transforms raw financial signals into context-aware, personalised user experiences. This team sits at the intersection of backend engineering, distributed systems, and applied AI.

We are building an AI-first banking experience. Not AI features sprinkled on top, but core intelligence that understands patterns, correlations, and intent across user behaviour. This is where backend architecture meets agentic AI systems.

About the role

We are looking for a Staff Engineer to join our AI Pod. This is a high-impact, hands-on individual contributor role. You will define and architect the backend foundations that power AI-native experiences across the slice ecosystem.

You will operate at the intersection of distributed systems, large-scale data, and production-grade AI systems. This role requires both strong backend fundamentals and deep practical experience deploying AI/LLM-powered systems in production.

What You will do

• Architect and build scalable backend systems that power intelligent, personalised product experiences
• Design and deploy AI-powered services, assistants, and agentic workflows in production environments
• Define the orchestration layer for AI models, tools, memory, and decision-making systems
• Build large-scale data enrichment, classification, and correlation systems across transaction data
• Lead architectural decisions around AI-native backend infrastructure
• Design systems that balance latency, reliability, cost, and model performance
• Establish observability, evaluation, and guardrail frameworks for AI-powered features
• Mentor engineers across backend and AI domains, setting high engineering standards
• Collaborate closely with product, data, and leadership to shape long-term AI strategy

What You will need

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience building scalable distributed systems
• Proven experience architecting and owning complex backend platforms
• Strong proficiency in Java / Kotlin / Go / Python (at least one deeply)
• Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM / GenAI-powered systems in production
• Experience designing AI agents, orchestration frameworks, or multi-step reasoning systems
• Deep understanding of system design, event-driven architecture, and high-throughput systems
• Experience with embeddings, RAG pipelines, vector databases, and model integration
• Experience handling latency optimisation, cost control, fallback logic, and reliability for AI systems
• Strong product thinking and ability to operate in ambiguous problem spaces

Bonus points if you've:

• Built personalisation engines or recommendation systems
• Designed model routing / tool-calling frameworks
• Implemented LLM evaluation and monitoring frameworks
• Worked in fintech or data-heavy consumer products

What makes this role unique

You will be part of the founding layer of slice's AI Pod, shaping how intelligence is embedded into a banking experience from first principles.

Life at slice

Life so good, you'd think we're kidding:

• Competitive salaries. Period.
• An extensive medical insurance that looks out for our employees & their dependents. We'll love you and take care of you, our promise.
• Flexible working hours. Just don't call us at 3AM, we like our sleep schedule.
• Tailored vacation & leave policies so that you enjoy every important moment in your life.
• A reward system that celebrates hard work and milestones throughout the year. Expect a gift coming your way anytime you kill it here.
• Learning and upskilling opportunities. Seriously, not kidding.
• Good food, games, and a cool office to make you feel at home. An environment so good, you'll forget the term colleagues can't be your friends.