Senior AI Research Engineer

This is Adyen

Adyen provides payments, data, and financial products in a single solution for global customers like Meta, Uber, H&M, and Microsoft, making us the financial technology platform of choice. At Adyen, everything we do is engineered for ambition. We create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by a culture that encourages ownership and provides the support to truly own your career. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team, delivering innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.

The Opportunity

Adyen is building a top-tier AI research engineering team to drive our next chapter of innovation using AI across the entire company. This is a highly technical, hands-on leadership role focused on translating cutting-edge AI research into robust, scalable, and production-ready applications within the financial technology sector. As a Senior Research Engineer, you'll operate with a high degree of autonomy and responsibility, delivering strategic, high-impact outcomes that bridge the gap between advanced AI research and global-scale production systems. Our AI research efforts are expanding, with ML scientists in Amsterdam collaborating on significant projects that could impact trillions of dollars in transactions annually.

What you’ll do:

• Drive the execution of Adyen's AI research strategy, focusing on the practical application of Generative AI (GenAI) and other AI methodologies in finance. This includes contributing to Adyen's efforts in key research areas such as AI agents for data analysis and operational workflows, human-in-the-loop research for integrity risk, and foundational model development. For instance, you might contribute to initiatives like the Data Agent Benchmark for Multi-step Reasoning (DABstep), which evaluates AI agents on real-world data analysis tasks, including those from the financial sector.
• Bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and production by rapidly prototyping AI features and implementing research papers into robust, scalable, and production-ready code that delivers measurable business value.
• Help shape the long-term vision for AI at Adyen, specifically how AI will interact with humans and finance, including consumers, merchants, and financial institutions. This also includes understanding regulation and advocating for safe innovation in the field.
• Drive innovation by challenging the status quo, introducing transformative ideas, and leveraging technologies and methodologies to improve solutions that align with company strategy.
• Carry out flexible, value-driven assignments, proactively unblocking your team and adjacent teams, maximizing organizational impact and driving strategic initiatives.
• Provide technical mentorship and sponsorship to engineers across in your team and adjacent teams, fostering collaboration to share knowledge and best practices, and cultivating a culture of continuous improvement through deep engagement in problem-solving and hands-on guidance.
• Stay connected with the broader AI industry to stay informed of the latest advancements and identify potential partnership opportunities.
• Champion engineering and scientific alignment, advocate for high-quality standards, and drive the reduction of complexity and dependencies across teams.
• Actively pair with engineers to solve deep-rooted technical challenges and be fully capable of being hands-on with the code, whether creating proof-of-concepts or fixing critical performance issues.

Who you are:

• You have 5+ years of professional experience in software engineering, machine learning, or applied research, with a proven ability to drive high-impact initiatives end-to-end.
• You are deeply plugged into the scientific AI research community and have a strong understanding of the latest advancements in AI, especially Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs).
• You possess a proven ability to take cutting-edge AI research papers and implement them into production-quality, scalable code.
• You demonstrate a strong engineering mindset with a track record of writing clean, efficient, and scalable code suitable for production environments.
• You excel at translating complex technical concepts into clear, understandable terms for diverse audiences, including engineers, executives, and during public events. You adapt your communication style to effectively engage with diverse audiences.
• You demonstrate the ability to think critically and deliver simple and elegant solutions to complex, cross-team problems, influencing team direction and fostering innovation.
• You excel in soft skills such as empathy, influence, negotiation, relationship building, and conflict resolution.

Nice to haves:

• Experience in AI-enabled fintech or infrastructure companies.
• Familiarity with classical machine learning or infrastructure concepts.
• Experience with external visibility activities such as conferences and publications.
• A strong product sense and the ability to identify impactful AI use cases.
• Experience working with on-premise infrastructure.

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commitments Our unique approach is a product of our diverse perspectives. This diversity of backgrounds and cultures is essential in helping us maintain our momentum. Our business and technical challenges are unique, and we need as many different voices as possible to join us in solving them - voices like yours. No matter who you are or where you’re from, we welcome you to be your true self at Adyen. Studies show that women and members of underrepresented communities apply for jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. Does this sound like you? If so, Adyen encourages you to reconsider and apply. We look forward to your application!

What’s next?

Ensuring a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience is critical for us. We aim to get back to you regarding your application within 5 business days. Our interview process tends to take about 4 weeks to complete, but may fluctuate depending on the role. Don’t be afraid to let us know if you need more flexibility.

This role is based out of our Madrid office. We are an office-first company and value in-person collaboration; we do not offer remote-only roles.