Director of Artificial Intelligence

About Figure Figure (NASDAQ: FIGR) is transforming capital markets through blockchain. We’re proving that blockchain isn’t just theory - it’s powering real products used by hundreds of thousands of consumers and institutions. By combining blockchain’s transparency and efficiency with AI-driven automation, we’ve reimagined how loans are originated, funded, and traded in secondary markets. From faster processing times to lower costs and reduced bias, our technology is helping borrowers, investors, and financial institutions achieve better outcomes. Together with our 170+ partners, we’ve originated over $17 billion in home equity loans (HELOCs) on our blockchain-native platform, making Figure the largest non-bank provider of home equity financing in the U.S. Figure’s ecosystem also includes YLDS, an SEC-registered yield-bearing stablecoin that operates as a tokenized money market fund, and several other products and platforms that are reshaping consumer finance and capital markets. We’re proud to be recognized as one of Forbes’ Most Innovative Fintech Startups in 2025 and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Finance and Personal Finance. About the Role We’re seeking a hands-on AI leader to drive the next phase of our applied AI evolution. As Director of AI, you’ll lead a high-caliber team building and operating large-scale, production AI systems that power critical business functions, acting as a player-coach who pairs deep technical execution with ownership of strategy, architecture, and standards. You’ll work directly with the Chief Data Officer and senior leadership at one of the most advanced organizations applying AI to consumer lending, with dozens of models already in production and automation delivering measurable impact. If you’ve shipped at scale (not just prototypes) and thrive at blending experimentation with engineering rigor to deliver tangible business value, this is a rare opportunity to lead, build, and innovate in a company that treats AI as core infrastructure and as a key competitive advantage. What You’ll Do Lead and expand the AI Engineering team focused on developing, fine-tuning, and maintaining LLM-driven and other AI systems that automate and optimize key business processes. Be a hands-on technical leader, contributing directly to architecture, code, and model development while mentoring AI engineers on best practices. Own the full AI lifecycle: from ideation and experimentation through production deployment and monitoring, in partnership with our Engineering and Analytics teams. Establish strong technical standards for model evaluation, observability, governance, and reliability, ensuring seamless integration into production systems. Drive applied AI innovation, leveraging emerging models, frameworks, and tools while balancing cutting-edge exploration with practical business impact. Collaborate cross-functionally with Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and Product to translate real-world business challenges into concrete, deployable AI solutions. Foster a culture of excellence, encouraging rapid prototyping, rigorous testing, and continuous improvement. Ensure AI reliability and performance at scale, including monitoring, retraining, and iterative refinement of deployed systems. Contribute strategically to the company’s AI roadmap and play a key role in setting technical direction and long-term vision. What We Look For 8+ years of hands-on experience designing, building, and deploying NLP and ML models in real-world, production-grade environments. Proven experience training, fine-tuning, and deploying LLMs and successfully integrating them into production systems. Real-world experience orchestrating agentic AI solutions with MCPs; must have successfully used or implemented MCPs to drive agentic AI processes at scale within production systems. Strong problem-solving ability, with a knack for translating ambiguous business problems into well-structured model development strategies. You combine academic rigor with pragmatic execution, rapidly prototyping and iterating toward impactful solutions. Track record of technical leadership, with demonstrated success leading teams that deliver business-changing AI systems integrated into live environments. Deep understanding of LLM operations, prompt optimization, orchestration frameworks, and model evaluation techniques. Proficiency in Python and familiarity with cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure), modern MLOps/LLMOps best practices, and model observability tools. Experience developing in Kotlin or familiarity with consumer finance or lending environments is a strong plus. Excellent communication, mentorship, and collaboration skills, able to translate technical complexity into business clarity. Salary Compensation Range: $193,600-$242,000/yr 25% annual bonus target, paid quarterly Equity stock options package This is the compensation range for the United States, actual compensation may vary based on individual candidate experience, location, or evolving business needs Benefits Comprehensive health, vision, and dental insurance with 100% employer-paid premiums for employees and their dependents on select plans Company HSA, FSA, Dependent Care, 401k, and commuter benefits Employer-funded life and disability insurance coverage 11 Observed Holidays & PTO plan Up to 12 weeks paid family leave Continuing education reimbursement Depending on your residential location certain laws might regulate the way Figure manages applicant data. California Residents, please review our California Employee and General Workforce Privacy Notice for further information. By submitting your application, you are agreeing and acknowledging that you have read and understand the above notice. Figure will not sponsor work visas for this position. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. #LI-MM1 #LI-Hybrid