We're seeking a Head of Machine Learning to own and scale the ML function at Prodigal. This is the senior-most ML role in the company — partnering directly with the CTO as a peer technical leader, defining the multi-year ML vision, building and leading a world-class team, and translating cutting-edge research into production systems that move the needle for over 100 customers and millions of consumers. You'll set the bar for technical excellence, hire and develop the next generation of ML leaders, and shape what consumer finance intelligence looks like over the next decade. If you've operated at this level before — or are ready to step into it at a company where ML is the engine of the product — we want to talk.

Responsibilities:

• Own the ML function end-to-end — vision, roadmap, team, delivery, and measurable business impact across classical ML, NLP, GenAI, and Agentic AI
• Partner with the CTO as the senior ML leader to set company-wide technical direction and shape the long-term roadmap for Prodigal's Intelligence Engine
• Build and lead a high-performing ML organization — hire, mentor, and develop ML engineers, applied scientists, and tech leads across multiple pods
• Translate research into product — drive the application of LLMs, Agentic AI, the modern NLP stack, recommendation systems, and classical ML into production systems serving 100+ customers
• Set technical standards for model development, deployment, monitoring, evaluation, and experimentation that scale across the org
• Architect data and ML infrastructure in partnership with the platform and engineering teams to support large-scale training and reliable, low-latency inference
• Communicate strategy and outcomes clearly to the founders, board, customers, and broader engineering organization
• Represent Prodigal externally — at conferences, in research collaborations, and as a senior voice in the consumer finance AI community
• Stay at the frontier of ML and GenAI research, identifying where new techniques unlock product and business advantage
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, engineering, GTM, and customer success leaders to ensure ML investment ties directly to revenue, retention, and customer outcomes

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in machine learning and software development at a tech or product company, with 4+ years leading ML teams (managing engineers and/or tech leads)
• Proven track record of shipping ML products in production at scale with measurable business impact
• Deep technical fluency across classical ML, deep learning, and the modern NLP/LLM stack — you can still go deep in design reviews, not just review at the surface
• Strong coding skills in Python. Hands-on with PyTorch, scikit-learn, Pandas, and Spark
• Demonstrated success hiring, mentoring, and growing ML talent — including team leads and senior engineers
• Strong executive communication and the ability to set technical direction with founders, peers, and the board
• A bias for outcomes — you connect model work to revenue, engagement, and operational metrics

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience as a founding ML hire, ML lead, or applied science leader at a high-growth AI/ML product company
• Background in voice AI, conversational AI, speech, NLP on unstructured text, or fintech/lending domains
• Experience with cloud services (AWS), Databricks, and building scalable, distributed systems
• Track record of running A/B testing and experimentation programs at scale
• Patents, publications, or open-source contributions; strong institutional pedigree (IIT, BITS, NIT, IISc)
• Experience scaling an ML org through a hypergrowth phase

Job Benefits

• GenAI at the core – Lead the ML function at a company where AI isn't a feature, it's the product. Shape groundbreaking work that redefines consumer finance intelligence.
• World-class team - You'll get the chance to learn from (and teach) some of the brightest and most skilled people you'll ever meet. Our team members have been part of BCG, Deloitte, EY, Blackstone, Meta, Amazon and are IIT, IIM, BITS alumnus.
• Continuous education - As relentless seekers of knowledge, we sponsor and support any training materials, books, courses, and exam fees for upskilling yourself in areas related to your role - but that's not where it ends. If you make a good case for some extra learning, we're delighted to foot the tab.
• Food at the office – Meals are on us. We won't let your stomach grumble while you hustle.
• Health insurance - Health always comes first. The health of your family is as important to us as it is to you. We offer insurance coverage for both you and your family.
• Flexible schedule - We're not a "clock in, clock out" company. Morning person? Start work while the world's still sleeping. Night owl? Ramp things up while others are winding down. You're fully trusted to create the right conditions for your own personal peak productivity. We only ask that you be available to your teammates for seamless collaboration.
• Generous leave policy - Take all the time you need to recharge your batteries - no cap on vacation here. Because a rested, relaxed, and refreshed mind is a happy and effective mind.
• Recreation & team activities – We regularly indulge in friendly football, table tennis, cooking sessions, and challenge each other to do those extra push-ups or chug that 4th drink (of course, that's Nimbu Pani).

Meet Sangram (Cofounder and CTO) and hear his vision for Prodigal: https://www.youtube.com/embed/FTWlN9fwiIA?feature=shared

What You’ll Do

• Build and deploy LLM-powered AI agents (including voice agents) in production, designed for real-world use cases
• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of AI systems — from problem scoping and design to deployment, monitoring, and continuous iteration
• Design and optimize prompts, RAG pipelines, and evaluation frameworks to improve accuracy, latency, and reliability
• Work directly with customers and Implementation Managers (IMs) to understand workflows, solve real-world problems, and drive successful go-lives and iterations 

What We’re Looking For

• 1–3 years experience in backend / data / AI engineering
• Strong in Python + SQL
• Experience or exposure to LLMs, RAG, or prompt engineering
• High ownership, ability to work in ambiguity and ship fast
• Comfortable working with customers and cross-functional teams

Preferred Qualification

• B.Tech, BE, or M.Tech in Computer Science or a related discipline, with 1–3 years of relevant experience

Bonus

• Experience with production LLM systems / AI agents
• Familiarity with evaluation, agent tooling, or voice AI
• Experience with Databricks, MongoDB, or distributed systems
• Startup or customer-facing engineering experience

Why This Role

• Work on real production AI systems (not demos)
• End-to-end ownership and fast iteration cycles
• Direct impact on enterprise customers and business outcomes

Mode of Work - In-Office

We're seeking a Machine Learning Lead to join our team in building cutting-edge products that shape the future of consumer finance. As a member of our team, you will oversee complex technical problems, build new features, and improve existing products. Our teams are constantly pushing the boundaries of applied intelligence in consumer finance, and we're looking for passionate individuals who can help us advance us further. If you're interested in leading a world-class team of engineers and researchers to work on exciting projects that have a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with the CTO to drive the team's goals and technical direction to pursue opportunities that make the organization more efficient
• Effectively communicate complex features and systems in detail
• Understand industry & company-wide trends to help assess & develop new technologies
• Partner with the CTO to lead long-term technical vision and roadmap for Machine Learning and the entire organization
• Suggest, collect, and synthesize requirements and create an effective feature roadmap
• Design and develop Machine learning products and services leveraging AI (LLMs, Agentic AI, classical ML, the modern NLP stack, etc)
• Architect and implement data pipelines for ML model training. Lead scalable software systems development to deploy ML models into production systems, ensuring high performance and reliability.
• Stay updated on ML research and the ever-changing Gen AI landscape, identifying opportunities for innovation.
•  Effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality solutions on time. Guide team members in contributing to ML design discussions for new projects.

Requirements:

• Extensive experience, 5+ years in software development, with a focus on machine learning and data science in a tech company. 
• Proven track record of delivering high-quality ML products in a fast-paced, agile environment.
• Deep understanding of machine learning algorithms with hands-on experience in developing and deploying machine learning models at scale.
• Strong coding skills in Python. Familiarity with machine learning libraries such as PyTorch and sci-kit-learn. Experience with data manipulation and analysis tools like Pandas and Spark.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams and mentor junior engineers.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with cloud services (AWS), Databricks, and building scalable, distributed systems.

Job Benefits 

• GenAI experience – Work directly in the innovative field of GenAI, shaping groundbreaking projects that redefine consumer finance intelligence.
• World-class team - You'll get the chance to learn from (and teach) some of the brightest and most skilled people you'll ever meet. Our team members have been part of BCG, Deloitte, EY, Blackstone, Meta, Amazon and are IIT, IIM, BITS alumnus.
• Continuous education - As relentless seekers of knowledge, we sponsor and support any training materials, books, courses, and exam fees for upskilling yourself in areas related to your role - but that's not where it ends. If you make a good case for some extra learning, we're delighted to foot the tab.
• Food at the office – Meals are on us. We won't let your stomach grumble while you hustle.
• Health insurance - Health always comes first. The health of your family is as important to us as it is to you. We offer insurance coverage for both you and your family.
• Flexible schedule - We're not a "clock in, clock out" company. Morning person? Start work while the world's still sleeping. Night owl? Ramp things up while others are winding down. You're fully trusted to create the right conditions for your own personal peak productivity. We only ask that you be available to your teammates for seamless collaboration.
• Generous leave policy - Take all the time you need to recharge your batteries - no cap on vacation here. Because a rested, relaxed, and refreshed mind is a happy and effective mind.
• Recreation & team activities – We regularly indulge in friendly football, table tennis, cooking sessions, and challenge each other to do those extra push-ups or chug that 4th drink (of course, that’s Nimbu Pani).

Meet Sangram - (Cofounder and CTO) and hear his vision for Prodigal below (01:38)

About the Role

In this role you will be building recommendation systems to drive higher consumer engagement and improve performance metrics of debt collection campaigns. You would be required to wear the hat of a Data scientist to analyze patterns and convert those into model weights. In this role you will own the project end-to-end and hence we are looking for a curious and resilient DSML Engineer who thrives in a culture of experimentation and rapid iteration. Our ideal candidate doesn't just apply AI concepts – they're excited to push boundaries, challenge assumptions, and learn from both successes and failures. If you believe that the only true failure is not experimenting quickly, we want you on our team.

Key Responsibilities

• Embrace a "fail fast, learn faster" mentality, aiming for a 20-30% success rate in your ideas and experiments. Continuously optimize our experimentation process, making it faster, more efficient, and more insightful
• Apply AI concepts to solve business problems, with a focus on rapid prototyping and iterative improvement
• Leverage SQL and data manipulation tools to work with complex datasets, exploring unconventional approaches
• Apply statistical methods, machine learning algorithms, and data visualization techniques to perform exploratory data analysis, embracing unexpected insights
• Build and interpret models using tools like PySpark and ML-Flow, constantly testing new approaches and parameters
• Write clean, well-documented code that facilitates collaboration and hence faster iteration
• Continuously evaluate and enhance existing models, viewing each iteration as an opportunity to learn and improve

Technical Skills

• Proficiency in rapidly prototyping and testing ideas using large, complex datasets and SQL
• Expertise in implementing and iterating on machine learning models and algorithms, with a focus on quick experimentation cycles
• Strong programming skills in Python and/or SQL, with an emphasis on writing code that facilitates easy modification and testing
• Experience in leveraging data visualization techniques to quickly interpret and communicate experimental results
• Ability to swiftly deploy and iterate on AI solutions in cloud environments

Soft Skills

• Passionate about experimentation and embracing failure, viewing setbacks as valuable learning opportunities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, able to articulate the value of experimentation and rapid iteration to stakeholders
• Thrives in ambiguity and uncertainty, comfortable with the idea that most experiments will not succeed; also designing good experiments is a crucial part of the R&D process
• Skilled at analyzing problems from multiple angles and generating a high volume of potential solutions

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field (Tier 1 colleges are preferred)
• Minimum of 2 years of hands-on experience in data analysis, modeling, and AI solutions development

If you're passionate about leveraging data to drive business decisions and have a track record of delivering impactful AI solutions, we want to hear from you!

Mode of Work - On-Site

Job Benefits 

• GenAI experience – Work directly in the innovative field of GenAI, shaping groundbreaking projects that redefine consumer finance intelligence.
• World-class team - You'll get the chance to learn from (and teach) some of the brightest and most skilled people you'll ever meet. Our team members have been part of BCG, Deloitte, EY, Blackstone, Meta, Amazon and are IIT, IIM, BITS alumnus.
• Continuous education - As relentless seekers of knowledge, we sponsor and support any training materials, books, courses, and exam fees for upskilling yourself in areas related to your role - but that's not where it ends. If you make a good case for some extra learning, we're delighted to foot the tab.
• Food at the office – Meals are on us. We won't let your stomach grumble while you hustle.
• Health insurance - Health always comes first. The health of your family is as important to us, as it is to you. We offer insurance coverage for both you and your family.
• Flexible schedule - We're not a "clock in, clock out" company. Morning person? Start work while the world's still sleeping. Night owl? Ramp things up while others are winding down. You're fully trusted to create the right conditions for your own personal peak productivity. We only ask that you be available to your teammates for seamless collaboration.
• Generous leave policy - Take all the time you need to recharge your batteries - no cap on vacation here. Because a rested, relaxed, and refreshed mind is a happy and effective mind.
• Recreation & team activities – We regularly indulge in friendly football, table tennis, cooking sessions and challenge each other to do those extra push ups or chug that 4th drink (of course that’s Nimbu Pani).