AI Applied Scientist

Circle is a financial technology company at the epicenter of the emerging internet of money, where value can finally travel like other digital data — globally, nearly instantly and less expensively than legacy settlement systems. This ground-breaking new internet layer opens up previously unimaginable possibilities for payments, commerce and markets that can help raise global economic prosperity and enhance inclusion. Our infrastructure – including USDC, a blockchain-based dollar – helps businesses, institutions and developers harness these breakthroughs and capitalize on this major turning point in the evolution of money and technology.

What you’ll be part of:

Circle is committed to visibility and stability in everything we do. As we grow as an organization, we're expanding into some of the world's strongest jurisdictions. Speed and efficiency are motivators for our success and our employees live by our company values: High Integrity, Future Forward, Multistakeholder, Mindful, and Driven by Excellence. We have built a flexible and diverse work environment where new ideas are encouraged and everyone is a stakeholder.

What you'll be responsible for:

The AI Applied Scientist is responsible for imagining and building new AI systems that advance Circle's cryptocurrency products.  A particular focus will be finding ways to leverage the power of AI while ensuring against mistakes in an environment (cryptocurrency) that is unforgiving of them.  You will also serve as a resource for the engineering organization and Circle's employees as a whole on advanced facets of AI usage and recent industry advances.  

What you’ll work on: 

• This is an applied scientist position.

• You should enjoy:

  • Taking a vague mandate or idea,

  • Investigating whether it makes sense to continue further,

  • Partnering with cross-functional personnel such as product managers to define and build a prototype.

• You are not expected to write production-ready code on your own.

• You are expected to partner with software engineers to bring successful prototypes to production.

• You should be very comfortable with the mechanics of AI and machine learning, including:

  • Building your own reinforcement learning fine-tuning system for a model (not just submitting a dataset to the OpenAI fine-tuning endpoint).

• You should have:

  • An intuitive understanding of which tasks LLMs are likely to perform well or poorly at

  • Awareness of the modern state of the AI industry.

• More broadly, you should be excited to:

  • Take research ideas at the intersection of AI and cryptocurrency,

  • Explore and build based on those ideas.

This position is open to applicants of all levels; we will determine your level based on your interviewing performance but are unlikely to consider anyone below a Senior level without extraordinary achievements.

What you'll bring to Circle:

• Significant comfort with AI and machine learning.  You should have a background in machine learning or a strong demonstrated understanding of techniques in it.  You should also be knowledgeable of the modern state of AI usage and comfortable with emerging technologies that work on top of LLMs, like MCP and A2A.  The AI ecosystem moves very fast and you should be comfortable continuously investigating and adopting bleeding-edge technologies.

• Strong ability in Python and common machine learning libraries in it (TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.), as well as knowledge of or an ability to pick up other languages like Javascript/Node.JS/Typescript, Java, and Go.

• Research experience in AI or machine learning, or experience building products based on it.

• Experience with cryptocurrency, blockchains, and smart contracts is a strong plus but not a requirement.

• Comfort with AI-assisted programming is a plus, but you must also be comfortable going without it.  Knowledge of building AI-assisted programming agents is a strong plus.

• Excellent communication skills allowing you to present complex technical topics at a tenor appropriate to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Ability to collaborate with remote teams, share ideas, and present concepts effectively.

• Self-direction and the discipline to identify and achieve clear deliverables even when working on speculative research projects.

• Desire to explore the intersection of AI and crypto.

Circle is on a mission to create an inclusive financial future, with transparency at our core. We consider a wide variety of elements when crafting our compensation ranges and total compensation packages.

Starting pay is determined by various factors, including but not limited to: relevant experience, skill set, qualifications, and other business and organizational needs. Please note that compensation ranges may differ for candidates in other locations.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Circle. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Additionally, Circle participates in the E-Verify Program in certain locations, as required by law.

Should you require accommodations or assistance in our interview process because of a disability, please reach out to accommodations@circle.com for support. We respect your privacy and will connect with you separately from our interview process to accommodate your needs.

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