Applied AI Engineer

Department: Applied AI

Location: SF Headquarters

Compensation: $200K – $300K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

About Us

We’re building the AI infrastructure powering the future of financial operations - starting with automating the most painful and complex workflows in loan servicing.

• Backed by a16z and Y Combinator, with $65M raised in Series A funding.

• 8-figure ARR < 2 years already serving > 20% of the auto lending industry, and processing millions of real customer calls and transactions daily.

• Fully deployed with major financial institutions - not just PoCs.

• We are expanding into new financial services segments!

• In-person office culture in San Francisco, CA.

We're fully integrated with our customers, own the full stack, and are moving fast to bring modern AI into regulated industries where precision, reliability, and performance matter most.

About the Role

We’re hiring an Applied AI Engineer to design, build, and scale the systems that power our next-generation voice AI platform.

You’ll work across the stack - from LLM fine-tuning and retrieval pipelines to real-time voice interactions - delivering production-grade systems that learn from real users in the wild.

This is a hands-on role focused on fast iteration, technical depth, and measurable impact in production.

What You’ll Do

• Develop multimodal AI systems with a focus on natural, real-time voice interactions

• Implement safety and alignment frameworks for LLM-driven user experiences

• Build scalable monitoring systems to detect and respond to unexpected model behavior

• Balance rapid feature deployment with long-term system reliability and scalability

• Ensure compliance with financial and data safety regulations

• Collaborate closely with engineering, product, and research teams to ship quickly and iterate continuously

What You’ll Bring

• 2+ years of experience working directly with LLMs or voice AI technologies (voice experience is a plus, not required)

• Deep expertise in LLM development (RAG, fine-tuning, prompt design, evaluation)

• Proven ability to ship and maintain production AI systems at scale

• Strong background in ML systems design and engineering best practices

• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills

• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco (4 days/week in office)

At Salient, we’re building at the edge of AI - fast, focused, and with real ownership. Sprints and major launches move quickly, and we look for people who are energized by that pace and ready to collaborate in person 4 days a week in our San Francisco office.

We also offer a benefits package designed to support our full-time employees: medical, dental, and vision coverage, a generous 401(k), and catered lunches.