---
title: 'Head of Applied Machine Learning (ML) at SentiLink'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-applied-machine-learning-ml-sentilink-united-states-3y7pzc115t70'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Head of Applied Machine Learning (ML) at SentiLink

- **Company:** SentiLink
- **Location:** United States
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sentilink/ba414a52-687a-45ad-9e2c-eae5b977cfaf

## Job description

[SentiLink](https://www.sentilink.com/) provides innovative identity and risk solutions, empowering institutions and individuals to transact with confidence. We’re building the future of identity verification in the United States replacing a clunky, ineffective, and expensive status quo with solutions that are 10x faster, smarter, and more accurate. We’ve seen tremendous traction and are growing extremely quickly. Our real-time APIs have helped verify hundreds of millions of identities, starting with financial services and rapidly expanding into new markets. SentiLink is backed by world-class investors including Craft Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NYCA, and Max Levchin. We’ve earned recognition from TechCrunch, CNBC, Bloomberg, Forbes, Business Insider, PYMNTS, American Banker, LendIt, and have been named to the [Forbes Fintech 50](https://www.forbes.com/companies/sentilink/?list=fintech50). We have also been named a [2026 FICO Industry Vanguard Decision Award Winner](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260330439998/en/SentiLink-Named-a-2026-FICO-Industry-Vanguard-Decision-Award-Winner-for-Leadership-in-Identity-Theft-Detection). Last but not least, we’ve even made history - we were the first company to go live with the [eCBSV](https://resources.sentilink.com/blog/sentilink-makes-history-as-first-ecbsv-provider) and testified before the [United States House of Representatives](https://resources.sentilink.com/media/sentilinks-statement-before-the-house-financial-services-committee) on the future of identity. SentiLink supports a variety of ways to work, ranging from fully remote to in-office. We operate as a digital-first company with strong collaboration across the U.S. and India. We maintain physical offices in Austin, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle (Bellevue), Los Angeles, and Chicago in the U.S., and in Gurugram (Delhi) and Bengaluru in India. If you’re located near one of these offices, we would love for you to spend time in the office regularly. Some roles are hybrid or in-office by design. For example, our engineering team in India works primarily from our Gurugram office.

Role: SentiLink builds the fraud detection and identity verification models much of the US financial system runs on. As Head of Applied ML, you own a major ML domain end to end. You'll lead a team of 4 applied ML scientists, 6 by the end of 2026, all experienced and technically deep enough to challenge you daily. This is a people management role that stays close to the work. Technical credibility is non-negotiable: you'll review PRs, push on modeling decisions, and unblock the team. Data science drives product decisions here, and we expect you to become a strategic leader in both the product and ML domains you own. We use AI across all of our work, are exploring where it belongs in the products themselves, and hold a hard line on AI safety and data governance. Technologies: Python 3, PostgreSQL, AWS, XGBoost, scikit-learn, pandas, Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, Neo4j, MLflow, Flyte, and use of modern LLM tooling.

Responsibilities:

- Directly manage a team of applied ML scientists, 4 today and growing to 6 by the end of 2026, and set the engineering and modeling practices they work by.
- Own strategy and execution for your applied ML domain: roadmap, priorities, resourcing, and results.
- Act as a technical mentor who can dive deep and give specific, useful direction. Guide modeling and architecture decisions, review PRs, and stay current on the codebase and production systems.
- Partner with senior leadership, Product, Engineering, and Risk to set priorities and deliver on aggressive timelines.
- Represent your domain in product strategy discussions and help shape where those products go next.
- Own SentiLink's fraud detection and identity models across the full lifecycle: data acquisition, feature engineering, labeling strategy, model training, experimentation, production deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
- Research emerging fraud patterns, build new ML capabilities for identity verification and financial risk, and design analyses that inform product and business decisions.
- Drive how the team uses AI in its own work, keep pushing the boundary on what that unlocks, and help define where AI belongs in our products.

Requirements:

- 10+ years of industry experience applying machine learning or statistics to real-world problems, or 7+ years with a relevant PhD, including 6+ years directly managing machine learning or data science teams across two companies or more. Startup experience strongly preferred.
- Experience leading ML or data science teams in fraud, identity, fintech, banking, financial services, payments, or adjacent risk-focused domains. Strongly desired, but not strictly required.
- Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, or another quantitative discipline.
- Demonstrated success developing and deploying production machine learning models, plus experience writing production-quality Python code and tests.
- Strong practical ML and applied statistics knowledge: able to scope solutions quickly with standard tooling and go deep where it pays off.
- Very strong end to end, with a track record of owning a technical domain and driving it to measurable business impact: planning, defining success criteria, getting buy-in, building the solution, and delivering it, whether in production, in a deck, or as strategy.
- Fluent with modern LLMs and AI-assisted development workflows, and opinionated about where they help and where they don't. Sound judgment when working with sensitive data under real information security and data governance constraints.
- Excellent communicator, including with senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders. Detail oriented and thoughtful, someone we can rely on to make business-changing decisions while thriving on varied, open-ended, high-impact problems.
- Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States and must live in the United States.

Compensation: $210,000-$260,000/year + equity + benefits

Perks:

- Employer paid group health insurance for you and your dependents
- 401(k) plan with employer match (or equivalent for non US-based roles)
- Flexible paid time off
- Regular company-wide in-person events
- Home office stipend, and more!

Corporate Values:

- Follow Through
- Deep Understanding
- Whatever It Takes
- Do Something Smart

## About SentiLink

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: SentiLink provides identity fraud prevention solutions that help financial institutions stop synthetic fraud, identity theft, and first-party fraud at the point of application.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Naftali Harris and Max Blumenfeld

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Fraud Detection, Identity Verification, Financial Technology / Cybersecurity
- Target customers: B2B – enterprise banks, credit unions, and fintech unicorns
- Mission: Empower institutions and individuals to transact confidently with one another by preventing fraud at account opening and beyond.

## Products & Services
All products are delivered via API, with flexible integration and optional human-in-the-loop case review.
- **[Synthetic Fraud Score](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Model that identifies and blocks first- and third-party synthetic fraud with high precision.
- **[ID Theft Score](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Detects fraudulent applicants to reduce losses from traditional identity theft.
- **[Facets](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Attributes that enhance fraud detection models with a clearer view of identity and risk.
- **[Insights](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Comprehensive risk assessment on incoming applications, combining multiple signals.
- **[eCBSV](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Real-time verification with the Social Security Administration’s database.
- **[ID Complete](https://www.sentilink.com/)**: Fills in missing applicant data (e.g., SSNs, DOB) to clarify identity and boost approval rates.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding ~$84M–$85M ([Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sentilink) reports $84M; [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sentilink) reports $85M). Annual revenue estimated at $30M ([Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sentilink)).
- **Notable Investors**: Andreessen Horowitz (led Series A), Craft Ventures (led Series B), NYCA Partners.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Headcount of 162 (+28.7% YoY) with 200+ active job postings ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sentilink)).
  - Trusted by 6/10 top U.S. banks and 13/15 top credit unions ([sentilink.com](https://www.sentilink.com/)).
  - Acquired Upstream Logix in 2022.
  - Expanding beyond lending into deposit accounts and buy-now-pay-later use cases.

## Competitive Advantages
- Deep domain expertise: product team includes dedicated risk analysts who review cases and combine human judgment with proprietary ML models.
- Direct SSA verification (eCBSV) gives unique access to authoritative identity data.
- High-touch, flexible integrations and strong partner ecosystem.
- Focused exclusively on fraud at the point of application, with tailored scores for different fraud types (synthetic, ID theft, first-party).

## Strategic Focus
- Continue building the “R&D engine” to stay ahead of evolving fraud patterns.
- Scale product suite to cover more account types (deposit accounts, BNPL) and deepen relationships with financial institutions.
- Grow headcount aggressively, especially in engineering, data science, and go-to-market roles.
- Maintain a culture that balances remote flexibility with in-person meetups to foster collaboration.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: High-performance, ownership-driven, with values like “Deep Understanding,” “Do Something Smart,” “Follow Through,” and “Whatever It Takes” ([sentilink.com/careers](https://www.sentilink.com/careers/)).
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Remote-first with regular in-person meetups.
- **Perks**: 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision; 401(k) match; flexible time off; home office stipend; generous parental leave (14 weeks birthing, 10 weeks non-birthing).
- **Growth**: Fast-growing company (nearly 30% YoY headcount growth) with many open roles across engineering, data science, and strategy.
- **Impact**: Work that directly protects consumers and the financial system from billions in fraud losses.

## Sources
1. [sentilink.com](https://www.sentilink.com/) – Company homepage, product descriptions, and customer logos
2. [sentilink.com/careers](https://www.sentilink.com/careers/) – Culture, values, and perks
3. [linkedin.com/company/sentilink](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sentilink) – Headcount, funding, executive team, job postings
4. [crunchbase.com/organization/sentilink](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sentilink) – Funding rounds, revenue estimate, product list
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/sentilink](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sentilink) – Active job openings

## Other roles at SentiLink

- [Head of Compliance, CRA](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-compliance-cra-sentilink-united-states-tkmdt4qmgd64) — United States
- [Principal Fraud Advisor](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-fraud-advisor-sentilink-united-states-6ynk7rq4spa2) — United States
- [Senior Marketing Content Writer, Demand Generation](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-marketing-content-writer-demand-generation-sentilink-united-states-yenn0kstpff2) — United States
- [Fraud Strategy Leader](https://feeny.ai/job/fraud-strategy-leader-sentilink-united-states-659brkzgnj03) — United States
- [Senior Software Engineer, Platform/Backend](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-platform-backend-sentilink-united-states-tmtqnegpwvnf) — United States
- [Applied Machine Learning (ML) Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-machine-learning-ml-manager-sentilink-united-states-aas51h2qrk4c) — United States
- [Lead/Senior Technical Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-senior-technical-recruiter-sentilink-united-states-8hene9hhh0kf) — United States
- [Manager, Risk Strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/manager-risk-strategy-sentilink-united-states-0vs200b1xape) — United States
- [Manager, Quantitative Risk Management](https://feeny.ai/job/manager-quantitative-risk-management-sentilink-united-states-kaw1txcxzvcm) — United States
- [Applied ML Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ml-scientist-sentilink-united-states-qb37cs78qtrq) — United States