Applied AI Engineer

Salient is pioneering voice AI solutions to transform consumer loan servicing and compliance. Our initial focus: the $1.5T U.S. auto lending market. In under two years since our launch Salient has seen rapid market growth, including:

• Scaling to more than $10M in ARR

• Partnering with some of the largest consumer lenders in America

• Cash flow positive

• Raising $65m in funding from top-tier venture capital investors

• Interfacing with more than 2 million unique US consumers

• Processing over $150M in cash transactions

• Preventing $30M in fraud and 35k+ CFPB violations

• In-person office culture in San Francisco, CA

About the Role

As an Applied AI Engineer at Salient, you'll work at the cutting edge of multimodal AI in financial services. You'll build systems that operate at massive scale, collaborating closely with our product and engineering teams.

Key areas of focus:

• Developing state-of-the-art multimodal AI systems, with particular focus on voice interactions

• Implementing robust safety and alignment frameworks for LLM-consumer interactions

• Building scalable monitoring systems to detect and escalate unexpected model behaviors

• Balancing rapid feature deployment with architectural scalability

• Ensuring AI systems comply with financial regulations and safety requirements

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience working directly with LLMs or voice AI technologies

• Deep expertise in modern LLM techniques (RAG, fine-tuning, prompt engineering)

• Experience with voice AI, ASR, and TTS technologies

• Track record of building and deploying production AI systems at scale

• Strong background in ML systems design and engineering best practices

• Excellence in cross-functional communication

• Experience implementing AI safety and monitoring frameworks

• Ability to work 4 days a week from our San Francisco office (open to candidates willing to relocate)

As an early-stage company building at the frontier of AI, we work with high intensity and commitment. While schedules can vary by role/team, many weeks will demand extra focus, flexibility and time particularly during major launches and high impact sprints. We're seeking those who are aligned to and able to commit to that expectation which includes 4 days per week in our San Francisco Office.