Founding Lead AI Engineer (Remote)

Job Description

Job Description

Working Arrangement: United States (Remote - work from anywhere in United States)

Shape AI That Powers the Future of Financial Access Across Southeast Asia At BJAK, we’re using AI to solve meaningful problems — from fraud detection and risk modeling to hyper-personalized financial experiences that make insurance and financial services more accessible. We’re looking for a Founding Lead AI Engineer based in the US to play a pivotal role in building, scaling, and leading the next generation of intelligent systems.

This role blends deep technical expertise with hands-on leadership, reporting directly to our Head of AI. You’ll write production code, shape strategy, mentor team members, and help grow a lean, world-class AI engineering team.

Why This Role Matters

You’ll design and deploy core AI systems that serve millions across the region

You’ll be the right hand to the Head of AI — driving technical execution and engineering standards

You’ll lead and mentor junior engineers to elevate team performance and capabilities

You’ll play a critical role in hiring and scaling a high-performance AI team

What You’ll Do

Design, build, and ship production-grade ML models for high-impact use cases

Lead model architecture, data pipeline design, and deployment strategies

Collaborate across product, engineering, and data teams to drive AI initiatives

Own the end-to-end ML lifecycle — from data prep to deployment and monitoring

Review code, guide projects, and mentor engineers through technical challenges

Champion experimentation, continuous learning, and AI best practices

Interview and evaluate candidates, contributing to technical hiring and team building

Stay ahead of ML advancements — and bring cutting-edge solutions into production

You’ll Thrive Here If You...

Lead from the front — you’re hands-on in code, but always lifting others

Think like an owner — you don’t wait for permission to solve a problem

Operate at speed and depth — you make fast, sound decisions that balance trade-offs

Push for clarity — even in chaos, you bring structure, direction, and accountability

Care about what ships — you focus on solving real-world problems, not just academic ones

Grow the team, not just the tech — you enjoy mentoring, coaching, and seeing others win

Adapt fast — priorities shift, ambiguity is the norm, and you navigate both with confidence

Have a builder’s mindset — fast prototypes, strong opinions, and a hunger to iterate

Keep learning — you’re constantly leveling up your technical, product, and leadership game

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Strong proficiency in Python is a must

4–6 years of experience in AI/ML engineering with real-world deployment experience

Deep familiarity with ML frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn)

Solid understanding of the end-to-end ML lifecycle: data pipelines, training, validation, monitoring

Experience working on applied AI problems (e.g., recommendation, fraud, risk, NLP, etc.)

Track record of technical leadership and mentoring engineers

Excellent communication and collaboration skills

Must be based in the US and open to working remotely with regional teams

Nice to Have

Experience with MLOps tooling (e.g., MLflow, Airflow, Docker, GCP/AWS)

Familiarity with responsible AI practices (fairness, interpretability, model governance)

Startup or scale-up environment experience

Exposure to building internal tools, reusable ML components, or AI platforms

What You’ll Get

Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses

Fully remote and flexible work arrangement from anywhere in the US

High ownership role with impact visible at a regional scale

Direct reporting line to Head of AI with exposure to senior leadership

Opportunity to lead and shape a growing AI engineering team

Fast-track career growth and learning opportunities in a high-speed environment

Collaborative, flat culture where ideas move fast and great work gets noticed

About BJAK BJAK is Southeast Asia’s largest digital insurance platform, serving millions of users with transparent, affordable financial protection. Headquartered in Malaysia, and active in Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan, we’re building AI-driven systems that make complex financial services accessible, fast, and fair. We believe in technology that moves fast and serves real needs — from personalized pricing engines to smart automation and fraud detection. Join us in reshaping the future of financial access across Asia. If you’re ready to build, lead, and scale AI that matters — and want to grow with a company that thinks big and moves fast — we’d love to hear from you.