Jobs / United States / Plaid INC
Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Research Scientist) - Fraud
Plaid INC · 🇺🇸 New York City Office; Seattle Office; San Francisco HQ
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 27 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 9 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Plaid INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles2 certified filings for “Senior Machine Learning Engineer” (Data Scientists) in NY: $170k–$226k, median $198k. Most were filed at wage level IV (100%) — 4 lottery entries, ≈61% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
Or apply yourself on the official page →
Sponsor Radar — Plaid INC
The US Department of Labor certified 27 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 9 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Plaid INC →
About the role
We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Seattle, Washington D.C., Raleigh, London, and Amsterdam. We are the Fraud Data team within Plaid's Fraud organization. We leverage relationships and activity across Plaid’s network to develop machine learning models that help customers detect and prevent fraud while minimizing friction for legitimate users. Our team owns the full model lifecycle, from data processing and experimentation to feature pipelines, model serving, and monitoring. In this research role, you’ll partner closely with Machine Learning Engineers and Data Scientists to uncover new signals, explore and evaluate innovative modeling approaches, and translate promising research into production-ready solutions that strengthen fraud detection across Plaid’s network. As a Senior Research Scientist, you will lead applied research to develop next-generation fraud detection models across relational graphs, sequential events, images, and video data. You’ll design rigorous experiments and evaluation methodologies that reflect real-world fraud dynamics, while exploring state-of-the-art approaches such as Graph Neural Networks and Transformer-based foundation models. In close partnership with Machine Learning Engineers, you’ll translate promising research into production-ready solutions and communicate your findings internally and externally to advance the technical bar for fraud machine learning at Plaid. Responsibilities: - Research and prototype state-of-the-art approaches across graph machine learning, sequential modeling, and multimodal learning to build next-generation fraud detection capabilities. - Own and execute a research roadmap that translates innovative ideas and prototypes into production solutions with measurable product and customer impact. - Publish and share applied research while collaborating with a highly skilled, cross-functional team across Data, Product, and Engineering. - Leverage Plaid’s network-level financial data to uncover insights and develop solutions that help hundreds of millions of consumers achieve greater financial freedom. Qualifications: - PhD in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a closely related field strongly preferred. Candidates without a PhD may be considered with equivalent research experience, such as significant publications, patents, or widely adopted research contributions in relevant fields. - 2–4+ years of relevant industry or research lab experience, ideally post-PhD, with demonstrated research leadership and a track record of translating innovative research into measurable product or business impact. - Demonstrated scientific rigor, with strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to clearly communicate complex research findings. - Strong proficiency in Python and experience building high-quality research prototypes that can inform or transition into production systems. Nice-to-Have: - Experience in fraud detection, security, risk, or abuse prevention. - Experience with large-scale trai