Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Applied AI Platform

Block is one company built from many blocks, all united by the same purpose of economic empowerment. The blocks that form our foundational teams - People, Finance, Counsel, Hardware, Information Security, Platform Infrastructure Engineering, and more - provide support and guidance at the corporate level. They work across business groups and around the globe, spanning time zones and disciplines to develop inclusive People policies, forecast finances, give legal counsel, safeguard systems, nurture new initiatives, and more. Every challenge creates possibilities, and we need different perspectives to see them all. Bring yours to Block.
The Role
Block is organized into business groups, each with dedicated product and engineering teams. Our team plays a vital role in supporting these groups by delivering AI-powered solutions that directly benefit our customers and drive business growth. We are committed to building impactful products that solve meaningful problems, leveraging AI to create practical value across the company with direct impact to topline company revenue.
We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced Machine Learning Engineer to join our team to build AI products. In this role, you will collaborate closely with teams across Block to understand their challenges and opportunities. You'll have the opportunity to work across the full development stack and set product strategy. You'll design, develop, and launch AI-driven tools and applications that address real customer needs, working in an environment that values creativity, experimentation, and practical problem solving.
You will partner with internal and external stakeholders to deliver highly visible solutions, staying at the forefront of AI advancements to ensure our products remain innovative and effective. As a trusted advisor, you'll help guide teams in harnessing AI, identifying new possibilities, and driving product direction that leads to lasting impact.
This is a unique opportunity to become a leading expert in AI at Block. You'll work on projects that transform the way we build products and serve our customers. We welcome individuals who are passionate about building for the real world, embracing pragmatic approaches, and seeing challenges from fresh, nontraditional viewpoints.
You Will

• Leverage AI to automate workflows and deliver new AI-powered product experiences
• Develop scalable AI systems and platforms
• Collaborate across diverse teams to develop AI solutions by understanding and generalizing the problems of cross-functional stakeholders
• Lead AI innovation by building and open sourcing advanced frameworks and tools to enhance workflows and set industry standards
• Drive alignment with Block's AI strategy by acting as a company AI expert and educating other teams about how to apply cutting-edge AI to their domains
• Support the adoption of AI best practices across the company by providing guidance and sharing expertise

You Have

• 12+ years of experience in training and deploying ML models, developing ML software, and shipping customer-facing ML products.
• Deep understanding of modern ML techniques (e.g. Large Language Models) and the ML lifecycle from data gathering, training, model evaluation, MLOps, and productionizing models.
• Ruthless pragmatism when solving new and unconventional problems
• A desire to understand our clients' needs in order to design tools and systems that solve our customer's problems. As a platform team, our main customers are internal developers and products.
• Ability to produce production-quality code and services incorporating testing, evaluation, monitoring as well as the ability to quickly adapt to a new domain, hack MVP's, and iterate to improve product.
• Experience using any of the major cloud vendors for high scale production use cases
• Strong communication skills (verbal and written) with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

We're working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is an equal opportunity employer evaluating all employees and job applicants without regard to identity or any legally protected class. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and "fair chance" ordinances.
We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we're doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page .
While there is no specific deadline to apply for this role, U.S. roles are typically open for an average of 55 days before being filled by a successful candidate. Please refer to the date listed at the top of this job page for when this role was first posted.
Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.
To find a location's zone designation, please refer to this resource . If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information.
Zone A:
$276,800 - $415,200 USD
Zone B:
$276,800 - $415,200 USD
Zone C:
$276,800 - $415,200 USD
Zone D:
$276,800 - $415,200 USD
Use of AI in Our Hiring Process
We may use automated AI tools to evaluate job applications for efficiency and consistency. These tools comply with local regulations, including bias audits, and we handle all personal data in accordance with state and local privacy laws.
Contact us at [email protected] with hiring practice or data usage questions.
Every benefit we offer is designed with one goal: empowering you to do the best work of your career while building the life you want. Remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning are just some of our offering. Check out our other benefits at Block.
Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ) builds technology to increase access to the global economy. Each of our brands unlocks different aspects of the economy for more people. Square makes commerce and financial services accessible to sellers. Cash App is the easy way to spend, send, and store money. Afterpay is transforming the way customers manage their spending over time. TIDAL is a music platform that empowers artists to thrive as entrepreneurs. Bitkey is a simple self-custody wallet built for bitcoin. Proto is a suite of bitcoin mining products and services. Together, we're helping build a financial system that is open to everyone.