Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning

usekita-com

On-site

San Francisco, CA

Full-time

Senior

3+ yrs

Salary not listedPosted 2mo ago

Save

Real job — pulled straight from usekita-com’s careers page · Verified June 11, 2026 · No reposts.

usekita-com is hiring a Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning — a full-time, based in San Francisco, CA role. Apply directly on usekita-com's careers page below.

Founding Engineer (Data Science & Applied ML)

Location: San Francisco

Department: Engineering

Location Type: IN_OFFICE

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

About Kita

In emerging markets, credit infrastructure is broken. Credit bureaus are unreliable, open finance is limited, and most financial data lives in messy documents. As a result, millions of individuals and businesses are locked out of credit because lenders can’t properly assess them.

Kita is building the infrastructure to fix this. We turn messy financial documents into structured, fraud-checked signals that lenders use to make underwriting decisions. We work with customers ranging from fintechs to enterprise banks, and build closely with them on the ground — during the YC batch, we spent time in Manila, Singapore, Jakarta, and Mexico City.

We’re a Stanford AI team backed by Y Combinator, top funds, and leading angels across Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia. During the YC batch, we grew ~40% week-over-week with customers across three continents. Our CTO was ranked #1 in Stanford CS in 2025.

The Role

Kita is seeking a Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied ML to build the intelligence layer that makes our products useful for lenders. This is a technical role at the intersection of machine learning, data science, credit risk, and product engineering.

You will design and run backtests on historical lending data, identify which document-derived signals are predictive of repayment and fraud risk, and build evaluation systems that improve model performance in live underwriting workflows. You will also help shape new product offerings across the lending stack by tying extracted features and model outputs to real financial outcomes.

What you’ll be working on

As a founding engineer, you will design, build, and deploy ML systems that improve credit decisioning, fraud detection, and underwriting workflows. This means leading product from ideation to production, including scoping, implementation, deployment, and iteration of vision and VLM-based underwriting systems by linking extracted features to repayment outcomes.

Design and run backtests to evaluate the predictive value of extracted financial and fraud signals
Benchmark and build evaluation frameworks for validation, error analysis, and QA in high-stakes financial settings
Develop adaptive and online learning approaches to strengthen fraud and credit risk signals over time
Work closely with customers to understand underwriting workflows and translate them into robust ML systems

Requirements

3+ years of experience building and deploying ML software in production
2+ years of experience in analytics, risk, fraud, or credit domains in industry
Strong background in machine learning, data science, RL, statistics, quantitative engineering, & applied ML
Strong full stack software engineering ability and experience building production systems end to end

We are looking for a fast-learning, eager-to-build founding engineer with experience in credit risk, lending, underwriting, fraud, or fintech. Experience with computer vision or multimodal ML systems is a strong plus, as is experience with model calibration, feature selection, and error analysis in high-stakes settings. This is a highly applied, forward-deployed role. At Kita, you will help define the product foundations of the company from the ground up.

Get Data Scientist jobs like this→

New roles from thousands of companies land hourly, straight from their careers pages. Get the freshest matches by email so you never miss one.

Email me new jobs

More Data Scientist jobs→More jobs at usekita-com→

HiddenLayer

New

AI Solutions Architect

Remote · US-eligible

✓ From careers page· 25m ago

Job Listings at Bank of China, U.S.A.

New

Data Analytics Vice President

$110k–$230kNew York, NY

✓ From careers page· 25m ago

Glean

New

Software Engineer, AI & Security

$140k–$265kMountain View, CA

✓ From careers page· 49m ago

Blue River Technology

New

Systems Engineer, Autonomous Systems

$131k–$228kRemote · US-eligible

✓ From careers page· 1h ago

Frequently asked questions

What skills are required for Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com?

The required skills for Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com include: Machine Learning, Data Science, Python, SQL, API, Computer Vision, Deep Learning.

What is the seniority level for Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com?

Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com is a Senior level position.

How do I apply for Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com?

You can view the full description and apply for Founding Engineer, Data Science & Applied Machine Learning at usekita-com on EchoJobs: https://echojobs.io/job/usekita-com-founding-engineer-data-science-applied-ml-4lfrd.

Job description