Applied AI Lead

Responsibilities

• Act as the operational owner of AI at the business; partner with functional leaders to identify high-leverage areas where AI tooling can dramatically reduce effort, increase quality, or accelerate timelines
• Stand up agentic workflows end-to-end using Claude Code (or similarly capable models), our internal stack, MCPs, etc.
• Own context engineering, prompt design , tool definitions, eval harnesses, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints.
• Build and maintain reusable skills, sub-agents, and MCP integrations that compound across functions
• Own AP's internal AI tool stack : model selection, vendor evaluation, build-vs-buy decisions, license utilization, data handling policies, and access controls.
• Support the biz-ops and operational engineering team in building AI-native dashboards and workflows that are architected for scale.
• Act as a resource on AI security across the organization: prompt injection defense, access controls in agentic systems, vulnerability assessment, and staying current on emerging AI attack surfaces.
• Collaborate with the Head of Data to ensure data infrastructure supports AI consumption patterns and advocate for what needs to change to unlock specific product bets.
• Help raise AI literacy across the organization and facilitate training sessions.
• Support product organization on AI feature implementation: define context structure, retrieval strategy, and how agents interact with platform data.
• Propose and help establish AI best practices , tooling standards, and evaluation frameworks across both product and operational contexts.

Requirements

• We're seeking an Applied AI Lead to join our team and own the AI layer powering our internal operations.
• This role is ideal for someone who thrives on technical problem-solving with real business context, and wants to take a hands-on role in shaping how an AI-native fintech platform gets built from the inside out.
• This role is available to candidates eligible to work in the US, hybrid in New York.
• 6+ years of operating experience in biz ops, strategy, transformation, consulting, software development, data or a similar outcome-owning role with meaningful depth in AI systems: you've built and shipped production AI, not just used it.
• Production prompt engineering and context engineering experience: You can articulate the trade-offs between long context, RAG, fine-tuning, and tool use, and have made these calls before.
• MCP experience: you've built MCP servers , integrated them into agent workflows, and understand the design space.
• Strong understanding of AI security: prompt injection, access control in agentic systems, data exposure risks, and how to harden LLM-adjacent infrastructure.
• The ability to move fluidly between product technical and operational/biz-ops contexts: translating AI capabilities into business outcomes and vice versa.
• Strong communication skills to explain complex AI tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders and earn trust across teams without formal authority.
• A proactive mindset with the ability to drive projects independently in a high-ambiguity, fast-moving environment.
• Background in fintech, payments , or a data-rich vertical SaaS environment.
• Familiarity with operational engineering or internal tooling contexts, not just external product surfaces.
• Experience evaluating or improving AI systems built by teams without deep AI expertise.
• Comfort working in fast-paced, high-ownership environments where the architecture is still being defined.

Benefits

Additional Information

Alternative Payments is building the financial operating system for SMBs, consolidating the disconnected tech stack that holds service-based businesses back. Starting with MSPs, we've spent five years perfecting accounts receivable, and we're now expanding into accounts payable, AI-powered analytics, and beyond. We're at an inflection point: closing the loop on money movement and laying the foundation for a platform that will reshape how service businesses operate financially. We're growing fast, thinking big, and building a global team that wants to be part of something that lasts. We believe the best solutions come from diverse perspectives, deep collaboration, and a shared obsession with customer impact. If you're energized by real problems, real customers, and real impact, we want to hear from you!

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