About Uphold:
The Web3 economy will redefine how financial value is held and transacted, shifting much activity toward blockchain networks and digital assets. Founded in 2013, Uphold is a Web3 financial platform that supports almost 300 digital assets and acts as a Regulated Gateway to the Web3 economy. Featuring integrations with 26 blockchain networks and a robust trading engine connected to 30 underlying venues, the platform allows users to trade ‘Anything-to-Anything’ while enjoying keen pricing and deep liquidity.
Uphold has completed over 120 million transactions worth $40 billion from 10 million customers in over 150 countries.
Both people and companies need to access this exciting Web3 world, but it can be technically demanding and time-consuming.
Uphold strips away the complexity and lack of transparency to open up Web3 finance for everyone.
To learn more about Uphold, please visit https://uphold.com
We work collaboratively with a shared ownership mindset to design and implement complex technical projects, balancing speed with quality, learning from our past mistakes, and allowing everyone time to take the challenge they see fit.
The opportunity:
Uphold is looking for a Data Science & Artificial Intelligence Lead to lead our AI and Machine Learning initiatives.
This is a strategic leadership role where you’ll define how artificial intelligence can unlock value across our products, operations, and customer experiences. From fraud detection and churn prediction to large language model (LLM) integrations, you'll own the full lifecycle of AI development and adoption — combining research, engineering, and product thinking.
You’ll be responsible for building and scaling an AI-first mindset across the company, bringing together modern ML infrastructure, experimentation frameworks, and applied AI innovation. This includes both traditional data science work and the integration of frontier tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and open-source LLMs to improve automation, performance, and decision-making at scale.
We’re looking for someone who’s both visionary and hands-on — excited to lead a high-caliber team, collaborate cross-functionally, and shape the future of AI at Uphold.
What you’ll be doing primarily:
- Technically own and execute the company-wide AI strategy, covering both in-house ML initiatives and the adoption of generative AI tools.
- Lead a team of machine learning engineers, data scientists, and AI researchers focused on delivering real business impact.
- Oversee the development, deployment, and monitoring of ML models, including those used for churn prediction, fraud detection, user segmentation, and personalization.
- Champion experimentation, causal inference, and model evaluation best practices to ensure rigor during decision making.
- Evaluate and integrate GenAI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini) to automate internal workflows, improve efficiency, and enhance user-facing experiences.
- Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Operations, Risk, and Compliance to identify high-value AI use cases and translate them into scalable solutions.
- Define best practices for responsible AI, including bias mitigation, data privacy, explainability, and governance.
- Establish platform and tooling strategy for model development, training, deployment, and monitoring at scale.
- Stay on top of advancements in the AI/ML field, guiding long-term innovation efforts and ensuring Uphold remains at the forefront.
- Mentor and grow AI talent, supporting career development and technical excellence across the team.
- Report to the executive team and board, showcasing how AI is contributing to core business goals.
- Evangelize a data-driven culture throughout Uphold’s multiple business units.
Required qualifications:
- 8+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or applied AI.
- 1+ years in data leadership roles, with a proven ability to scale teams and drive cross-functional data initiatives.
- Deep experience in applied machine learning, including supervised/unsupervised learning, model lifecycle management, and evaluation.
- Experience deploying models into production environments, including monitoring, retraining, and observability practices.
- Strong working knowledge of LLMs, embeddings, prompt engineering, and GenAI integrations.
- Proficiency with modern ML infrastructure, frameworks, and tools (e.g., Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, LangChain, Weights & Biases, etc.).
- Track record of turning AI/ML solutions into business value across different domains (e.g., fraud, growth, operations, customer support).
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including experience presenting to C-level and non-technical audiences.
- Knowledge of AI governance and ethical considerations in real-world applications.
- Fluent written and oral English skills.
Bonus if you have:
- Advanced degree preferred, with preference for PhD-level education or research experience.
- Experience working in the Web3, crypto, fintech, or financial services sectors.
- Familiarity with data privacy regulations as they pertain to ML and AI.
- Prior experience leading innovation teams or ML R&D labs.
- Community talks, certifications, and/or blog posts on your areas of interest.
- Open-source project contributions of any kind, such as tools developed to solve specific problems you’ve had or fixing issues on existing projects.
What we have to offer you:
- An amazing work environment in a company that continues to grow, driven by extraordinary and passionate people who keep up innovating and challenging more each day.
- An international team, in a cutting-edge field, working on the most fascinating projects.
- Growth and career opportunities, and the chance to be proactive and creative.
- A flexible and enthusiastic work environment that offers you snacks, a lot of coffee, and other great benefits.
- Open and transparent culture - we get together on a weekly basis to share updates, and strategic plans, and engage with each other informally over food and drinks.
- Interesting events that keep you connected with the team and celebrate our success.
Be part of a great company that is revolutionizing financial services. Apply now!
EEOC Employer
We're proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and we celebrate our employees' differences, including race, color, religion, gender identity, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, and any other protected classes. Difference makes us better.
