Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at Nubank?
Apply Now →Skills & Technologies
About This Role
About Nu
============
Nu is the leading digital bank in Latin America, serving 135 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company has been leading an industry transformation by leveraging data and proprietary technology to develop innovative products and services.
Guided by its mission to fight complexity and empower people, Nu caters to customers’ complete financial journey, promoting financial access and advancement with responsible lending and transparency. The company is powered by an efficient and scalable business model that combines low cost to serve with growing returns.
Nu’s impact has been recognized in multiple awards, including Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Banks.
Visit our Institutional Page
### About the role
At AI Core, we are scaling the impact of our AI initiatives to become the primary driver of Nubank’s most critical decision systems. We are seeking Machine Learning Engineers to lead high\-impact research projects that bridge the gap between state\-of\-the\-art AI and production\-grade financial systems. You will be responsible for solving complex, ambiguous problems using Deep Learning and Foundation Models, ensuring our architectures are scalable, efficient, and driving measurable business results.
As an Machine Learning Engineer (MLE), you’re expected to:
- Research Execution \& Technical Leadership (Complexity \& Autonomy)
- Lead and execute complex applied research initiatives independently, focusing on building and optimizing architectures (e.g., Transformers, GNNs) that can be deployed across critical use cases like Credit, RecSys, GenAI, and real\-time inference.
- Address difficult and ambiguous modeling problems that require coordination across various stakeholders (Data, Infra, Product), delivering innovative solutions with a clear focus on medium\-term impact.
- Bridge the gap between research and production by designing architectures that respect MLOps constraints, ensuring models are optimized for latency, interpretability, and cost\-efficiency.
- Strategic Impact \& Collaboration (Impact)
- Develop and deliver innovative solutions that address project\-level challenges, focusing on pushing the latest platform and AI research improvements into downstream production models.
- Actively participate in cross\-functional collaborations, ensuring that research outputs are seamlessly integrated into Nubank's decision\-making engines.
- Establish technical standards within the AI Core team for experimentation, model evaluation, and code quality, inspiring peers to raise their performance.
- Mentorship \& Function Contribution (Function Contribution)
- Serve as a technical mentor for senior engineers and researchers, providing guidance on deep learning fundamentals, problem formulation, and research methodology.
- Actively contribute to the function's growth by participating in mandatory activities like hiring (interview panels) and leading internal task forces to improve our ML lifecycle.
- Contribute to thought leadership by participating in research collaborations or internal papers that align with Nubank’s strategic goals.
What are we looking for?
- Professional Experience: 5\-7\+ years in applied AI/ML, with a proven track record of delivering research\-driven systems into production environments
- Technical Mastery:
+ Deep expertise in Deep Learning architectures (Transformers, Multimodal, or GNNs).
+ Strong coding skills in Python and proficiency with frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
+ Solid understanding of MLOps and the constraints of deploying models at scale.
- Problem Solving: Sophisticated skills in ML problem formulation and the ability to navigate uncertainty when data is messy or unavailable.
- Communication: Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical peers and cross\-functional stakeholders, ensuring alignment and buy\-in.
- Analytical Capacity: Experience with large\-scale experimentation and A/B testing to validate research hypotheses.
Our Benefits
- Opportunity of earning equity at Nu
- Total compensation includes base salary, RSUs and benefits. Base salary range: $230k \- $345k
- Medical Insurance
- Dental and Vision Insurance
- Life Insurance and AD\&D
- Extended maternity and paternity leaves
- Nucleo \- Our learning platform of courses
- NuLanguage \- Our language learning program
- NuCare \- Our mental health and wellness assistance program
- Extended maternity and paternity leaves
- 401K
- Saving Plans \- Health Saving Account and Flexible Spending Account
- Work\-from\-home Allowance
- Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable.
Role Location
Palo Alto, California
Hybrid 2\-3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu\-hybrid\-work\-model/
Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence–enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.
Salary Context
This $230K-$345K range is above the 75th percentile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At Nubank, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($287K) sits 34% above the category median. Disclosed range: $230K to $345K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.
Nubank AI Hiring
Nubank has 4 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Miami, FL, US, Palo Alto, CA, US. Compensation range: $17K - $345K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence
Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.