Data Scientist – LLM Agent

The Company

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. 

We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers.

We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards.  Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. 

Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day.  We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Job Summary:

We are currently seeking a Machine Learning Engineer or Scientist to join our team focused on developing scalable machine learning and solution automation toolkits and libraries. This position offers the opportunity to work at the intersection of engineering and data science, helping build advanced agentic platforms that accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent solutions at scale for fraud detection.
In this role, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams of engineers and data scientists to create cutting-edge infrastructure and reusable components that will be leveraged across hundreds of ML use cases for fraud detection. You will also have the chance to explore and apply state-of-the-art machine learning techniques from both academia and industry, like LLM, Agentic AI, etc., driving innovation and impact across PayPal’s global data science community.

Job Description:

What You’ll Do

• Design and prototype data science solutions that enhance model development lifecycle (MDLC), automation, and large-scale ML enablement.
• Apply advanced machine learning and statistical techniques to solve high-impact, system-level problems with real-world constraints.
• Explore and integrate emerging trends in agentic AI and LLMs into intelligent assistants, toolkits, or reasoning systems that support internal data science use cases.
• Develop methodologies for scalable decision-making, tool orchestration, and memory-based reasoning in agentic workflows.
• Collaborate with platform engineering and product teams to translate prototypes into reusable components and frameworks.
• Stay up to date with academic and industry research and help shape the adoption of cutting-edge ML techniques into PayPal’s ecosystem.

About You

• 2+ years of industry experience as a Machine Learning Engineer, ML Scientist, or in a similar applied role.
• Solid understanding of machine learning concepts, techniques, and frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, XGBoost, scikit-learn).
• Familiarity with agent frameworks or agentic system design (e.g., ReAct, AutoGPT, OpenAgents, HuggingGPT, RAG), including use of tools, memory, and planning components.
• Familiar with LLM and agentic system performance evaluation.
• Proficient in Python, with experience in building production-quality software using object-oriented programming and software engineering principles.
• Curious and passionate about staying up to date with the latest ML research and best practices.
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills, with a