Senior AI Research Engineer

The Opportunity

Adyen is building a top-tier AI engineering organization in Amsterdam, San Francisco and Madrid to drive our next chapter of innovation using AI globally across the entire company. This is a highly technical, hands-on role focused on the exploration and application of cutting-edge AI research within the financial technology sector. As a Senior AI Research Engineer, you will operate with a high degree of autonomy and responsibility, delivering strategic, high-impact outcomes that bridge the gap between advanced AI research and production-grade applications at a global scale, potentially impacting trillions of dollars in transactions annually.

What You'll Do:

• Innovate and Deploy: Drive the execution of Adyen's AI 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 for integrity risk, and development of foundation models. 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.
• Build Production-grade Applications: Bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and production by implementing research papers into robust, scalable, and production-ready code. Reduce complexity and dependencies across teams by championing engineering and scientific alignment by setting high quality standards.
• Optimize and Scale: Contribute to defining 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.
• Think Outside the Box: Drive innovation by challenging the status quo, introducing transformative ideas and implementing creative solutions to solve real-world problems. Carry out flexible, value-driven assignments, proactively unblocking teams to maximize organizational impact and drive strategic initiatives.
• Force Multiplier: Provide mentorship and horizontal sponsorship across the organization, fostering collaboration to share knowledge and best practices, and cultivating a culture of continuous improvement. This includes deeply engaging them in problem-solving processes and guiding them through execution, fostering their growth through hands-on involvement.
• Team Player: Actively pair with other engineering teams 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.
• Learn and Lead: Connect with the broader AI community (including startups, VCs, and AI labs) to stay informed of the latest advancements and identify potential partnership opportunities.

Who You Are:

• You are deeply embedded in the scientific AI research community and have a strong understanding of the latest SOTA advancements.
• You have significant experience and a strong understanding of Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs).
• You demonstrate a strong engineering mindset with a track record of writing clean, efficient, and scalable code suitable for production environments.
• You have demonstrated experience taking cutting-edge AI research papers and implementing them into production-quality code.
• You demonstrate the ability to think critically and deliver simple and elegant solutions to complex, cross-team problems, influencing strategic direction and fostering innovation across the organization.
• 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 thrive in leveraging empathy, influence, negotiation, relationship building, and conflict resolution to foster strong, trust-based collaborations.

Nice to Haves:

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

Why Adyen?

This is an exceptional opportunity to join a solid, established company with a startup mindset, characterized by small teams, direct communication, and work on important challenges. You’ll have direct access to massive global datasets (e.g., payments, identity data) and the ability to see your team's work have an immediate impact at scale. We offer an environment of ownership and speed, where a focused research team can make a significant difference.

You will be at the forefront of bridging AI and fintech, shaping how these two critical areas intersect. We are looking for individuals who are eager to stay connected to the edge of AI innovation while ensuring we deliver practical value to our global platform.

What’s next?

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