Senior Data Scientist, Model Engineering

TRM Labs is a blockchain intelligence company committed to fighting crime and creating a safer world. By leveraging blockchain data, threat intelligence, and advanced analytics, our products empower governments, financial institutions, and crypto businesses to combat illicit activity and global security threats. At TRM, you'll join a mission-driven, fast-paced team made up of experts in law enforcement, data science, engineering, and financial intelligence, tackling complex global challenges daily. Whether analyzing blockchain data, developing cutting-edge tools, or collaborating with global organizations, you'll have the opportunity to make a meaningful and lasting impact.

As a Senior Data Scientist on the AI Engineering team, you will drive the development and deployment of sophisticated machine learning and LLM models that power TRM's AI Engineering platform. Working closely with engineers, data scientists, and research scientists, you will build cutting-edge AI systems that help analysts detect, prevent, and mitigate cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime.

Your work will focus on creating intelligent agent systems and evaluation frameworks that enable seamless interaction with complex blockchain data. These tools will be consumed by prestigious entities such as former FBI, Secret Service, and other law enforcement agencies, providing them with unprecedented capabilities to investigate evolving criminal activities in the cryptocurrency space.

The impact you will have here:

• Design and deploy sophisticated ML/LLM models that accomplish impactful customer needs within TRM’s AI Engineering platform
• Develop robust catalogs of evaluation sets and observability tools for ML/LLM models to ensure reliable performance in production environments
• Monitor for data drift, concept drift, and emerging failure modes in production AI systems serving critical law enforcement use cases
• Leverage embeddings, retrieval, and ranking methods to improve agent tool selection and enhance the product experience for analysts
• Build models and analyses that optimize orchestration of multi-agent workflows, enabling complex investigative tasks through natural language interactions
• Stay up-to-date on state-of-the-art model and system design, easily implementing modern architecture patterns to serve external users
• Translate vague infrastructure and product requirements into measurable, data-driven metrics and evaluation frameworks
• Collaborate with engineers and research scientists to design agentic systems that analyze complex blockchain data structures, cryptographic protocols, and transactional patterns
• Create evaluation frameworks that measure the effectiveness of AI agents in helping investigators navigate blockchain data and identify suspicious activities
• Establish best practices for LLM evaluation, prompt engineering, and AI system monitoring

What we're looking for:

• You have 4+ years of experience working in a data science role, with demonstrated expertise in machine learning and data science
• Strong fluency with Python and SQL, with proven experience developing code in team environments (git, notebooks, testing)
• Strong background in data science, experimental design, and hypothesis testing
• Experience evaluating and building LLMs, embeddings, knowledge graphs, and information retrieval systems
• Familiarity with ML/AI methods (NLP, RLHF, embeddings) to analyze and improve agent behaviors
• General familiarity with ML/AI Ops and production system monitoring
• Ability to analyze large, multi-modal datasets (text, logs, graphs, APIs) for actionable insights
• Strong ownership mentality and comfort with uncertainty - ability to translate ambiguous intelligence questions into measurable evaluation frameworks
• History of taking strong ownership over systems and delivering value at high velocity
• Curiosity and drive to get to the root cause of problems, with evidence of creativity and self-directed work in ambiguous spaces
• Building and delivering Agentic/LLM systems with active users would raise the bar (industry experience preferred, but hobby or open source contributions valued, given the emerging nature of the technology)

About the Team:

• The AI Engineering team operates with a high level of collaboration and interdependence, fostering an inclusive culture where connections extend beyond work. We value diverse personalities and seek someone who is both results-driven and sociable, with strong communication, leadership, and teamwork skills, along with a positive, solutions-oriented mindset
• As a globally distributed team, members may observe different time zones. However, most of the team will overlap between the hours of 7am-12pm PST for meetings and collaboration
• All team members, regardless of location, must have at least 4 hours of overlap with PST business hours
• The team is involved in 2 different on-calls:
  • Analytics on-call: only requires focus on working time (average of < 1 hour a day every month)
  • Data Science on-call: full week on-call to ensure Data Science pipelines are running smoothly (average of 1-2 hours a day every 3 months)

The following represents the expected range of compensation for this role:

• The estimated base salary range for this role is $170,000 - $195,000. Please note that the base range is applicable to the US and will be different depending on the country.
• Additionally, this role may be eligible to participate in TRM’s equity plan.

Life at TRM Labs

Leadership Principles

Our Leadership Principles shape everything we do—how we make decisions, collaborate, and operate day to day.

• Impact-Oriented Trailblazer – We put customers first, driving for speed, focus, and adaptability.
• Master Craftsperson – We prioritize speed, high standards, and distributed ownership.
• Inspiring Colleague – We value humility, candor, and a one-team mindset.

Accelerate your Career 

At TRM, you’ll do work that matters—disrupting terrorist networks, recovering stolen funds, and protecting people around the world. You will:

• Work alongside top experts and learn every day.
• Embrace a growth mindset with development opportunities tailored to your role.
• Take on high-impact challenges in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Thrive in a culture of coaching, where feedback is fast, direct, and built to help you level up. 

What to Expect at TRM

TRM moves fast—really fast. We know a lot of startups say that, but we mean it. We operate with urgency, ownership, and high standards. As a result, you’ll be joining a team that’s highly engaged, mission-driven, and constantly evolving.

To support this intensity, we’re also intentional about rest and recharge. We offer generous benefits, including PTO, Holidays, and Parental Leave for full time employees.

That said, TRM may not be the right fit for everyone. If you're optimizing for work life balance, we encourage you to:

• Ask your interviewers how they personally approach balance within their teams, and
• Reflect on whether this is the right season in your life to join a high-velocity environment.
• Be honest with yourself about what energizes you—and what drains you

We’re upfront about this because we want every new team member to thrive—not just survive.

The Stakes Are Real

Our work has direct, real-world impact:

• Jumping online after hours to support urgent government requests tracing ransomware payments.
• Delivering actionable insights during terrorist financing investigations.
• Collaborating across time zones in real time during a major global hack.
• Building new processes in days, not weeks, to stop criminals before they cash out.
• Analyzing blockchain data to recover stolen savings and dismantle trafficking networks.

Thrive as a Global Team 

As a remote-first company, TRM Labs is built for global collaboration.

• We cultivate a strong remote culture through clear communication, thorough documentation, and meaningful relationships.
• We invest in offsites, regional meetups, virtual coffee chats, and onboarding buddies to foster collaboration.
• By prioritizing trust and belonging, we harness the strengths of a global team while staying aligned with our mission and values.

Join our mission!

We’re looking for team members who thrive in fast-paced, high-impact environments and love building from the ground up. TRM is remote-first, with an exceptionally talented global team. If you enjoy solving tough problems and seeing your work make a difference for billions of people, we want you here. Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t perfectly match a job description— we value passion, problem-solving, and unique career paths. If you’re excited about TRM’s mission, we want to hear from you.

Recruitment agencies

TRM Labs does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to TRM employees. TRM Labs is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes and will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company without a signed agreement.

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