Lead/Staff AI Acceleration Engineer

Dave vs. Goliath. We’re Dave.

Dave is a financial app on a mission to build products that level the financial playing field. It is redefining the financial landscape by leveraging technology to create an affordable, transparent, and user-centric access to liquidity for millions of Americans. As a leading innovator in the U.S. financial services sector, Dave’s digital financial platform offers products designed to meet the credit needs of those underserved by traditional financial institutions. Dave’s offerings include its flagship ExtraCash product, providing members up to $500 in short-term advances within minutes. The company is on track to launch several new product offerings in 2026, including a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) option.

Dave is focused on serving Americans who are financially vulnerable or living paycheck to paycheck. Dave is leading the charge in creating a new era of credit products that prioritizes speed, affordability, and accessibility, making it the go-to financial partner for those who need it most.

Dave is on a mission to build financial products that level the playing field. We serve millions of Americans who have been overlooked by traditional systems, giving them faster, more transparent access to liquidity when they need it most.

We’re hiring a Lead / Staff AI Acceleration Engineer to help define how AI is built and used across Dave.

The Opportunity

This is a foundational role on the AI Acceleration team. You’ll help shape the systems that power how AI agents are created, connected to data, and safely deployed across the company.

Your focus is not just building individual solutions. You’ll create the underlying infrastructure and patterns that allow teams across Dave to build and trust AI-driven workflows. Early work centers on analytics automation — agents that generate insights, detect anomalies, and handle recurring reporting.

You’ll partner closely with Data Engineering, building on a trusted data platform to create an AI Agent Factory that scales across the business.

What You’ll Build and Own

• The AI Agent Factory: shared patterns, templates, and infrastructure that make it easy to build and deploy reliable agents
• Systems that connect LLMs to structured data safely, including access control, context delivery, and governance
• Integrations with the semantic layer to ensure agents and dashboards use consistent business definitions
• Evaluation and observability frameworks that help teams understand agent quality and behavior over time
• Guardrails that reduce risk, including protections against hallucinations, cost overruns, and data misuse
• Early analytics automation agents that teams rely on for insight generation and exploration

The Impact

You’ll help establish how AI operates across Dave. When this work is successful, teams move faster with better information — and spend less time waiting on manual analysis.

What We’re Looking For

Experience / Technical Foundation

• 6+ years in data engineering, ML engineering, AI infrastructure, or platform engineering
• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications, agents, or tool-use systems in production
• Experience connecting LLMs to structured data in a safe, reliable way (APIs, data access layers, context delivery, governance)
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including testing, monitoring, and production reliability
• Experience with modern data and ML tooling (e.g., Python, Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Kafka, Kubernetes or equivalents)
• Experience operating production systems, including CI/CD, monitoring, and incident response

Bonus

• Experience designing evaluation frameworks for AI systems
• Familiarity with semantic layer tools (e.g., dbt metrics layer, LookML)
• Experience in fintech or other regulated environments
• Experience building internal platforms or developer tooling used across teams
• Exposure to data lineage, audit systems, or compliance automation

What Makes Someone Successful Here

You take responsibility for outcomes, not just implementation. You think in systems — how agents interact with data, how teams adopt what you build, and how decisions scale across the company. You’re thoughtful about trade-offs and build solutions that hold up over time.

At the Lead level, you tend to focus on execution and reliability — building and operating systems end-to-end. At the Staff level, you also shape direction — defining patterns, influencing architecture, and guiding how the AI layer evolves across Dave.

You work well across teams. This role sits at the intersection of Data Engineering, Product, and Analytics, and success comes from building systems others trust and adopt. You’re open to feedback and adjust when new information changes direction.

What to Expect

This is a build-from-zero environment in parts. Not everything is fully defined, and you’ll help shape how AI is applied across the company. Priorities will evolve as we learn, but the focus remains on practical use cases with real impact.

You’ll have meaningful ownership, paired with a team that values collaboration, clear thinking, and steady progress over time.

Why Join Dave

• Build foundational AI systems that shape how an entire company operates
• Work on real problems with direct impact on millions of members
• Partner with strong teams across data, product, and engineering
• Contribute to a mission focused on expanding access to financial tools

Ready to build for the underdog?

Reports to: Director, Data Platform & AI Acceleration

Don’t let imposter syndrome get in the way of an incredible opportunity. We’re looking for people who can help us achieve our mission and vision, not just check off the boxes. If you’re excited about this role, we encourage you to apply. You may just be the right candidate for this or other roles.

Why you’ll love working here

At Dave, our people are just as important as our product. Our culture reflects the values that guide who we are, how we work, and what we aspire to be. Daves are member-centric, helpful, transparent, persistent, and better together. We strive to create an environment where all Daves feel valued, heard, and empowered to do their best work. As a virtual-first company, team members can live and work anywhere in the United States, except Hawaii. 

A few of our benefits & perks:

💚 Opportunity to tackle tough challenges, learn and grow from fellow top talent, and help millions of people reach their personal financial goals

💻 Flexible hours and virtual-first work culture with a home office stipend

🏥 Premium Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance plans

👶 Generous paid parental and caregiver leave

💰 401(k) savings plan with matching contributions

📈 Financial advisor and financial wellness support

🏖️ Flexible PTO and generous company holidays, including Juneteenth and Winter Break

🎉 All-company in-person events once or twice a year and virtual events throughout to connect with your team members and leadership team

Dave Operating LLC is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is dedicated to cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants and do not discriminate on any basis protected by federal, state, or local law, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history.