Machine Learning Engineer at PayPal
San Jose, CA
$187,741–$270,500from the description
Aug 9, 2026
San Jose, CA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Machine Learning Engineer role at PayPal's San Jose headquarters focused on building and deploying credit risk models — predicting delinquency, fraud, and repayment behavior for merchant lending products. The work spans the full ML lifecycle: data extraction and feature engineering at scale, model development using deep learning and tree-based methods, regulatory compliance, and communicating results to cross-functional stakeholders. Partial remote work is permitted from a commutable distance.
Senior level · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Master's required · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 45 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (data scientists). range 15–100
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $189,150 (middle half $152,859–$224,286). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 11, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The posting carries no explicit seniority level in the title ('Machine Learning Engineer'), but the compensation range ($187K–$270K/year) and the breadth of hard-required skills — deep learning architectures, NLP, credit model compliance, and end-to-end deployment — are consistent with a Senior-level role.
This role sits between Data Scientist (15-2051) and Software Developer (15-1252): it requires substantial ML modeling and statistical analysis (favoring 15-2051) but also emphasizes deployment, engineering, and software practices (favoring 15-1252). 15-2051 was chosen as the primary classification given the dominant focus on predictive modeling, statistical analysis, and experimental design.
A Master's degree in Mathematics, Statistics, or a closely related field is explicitly required with no 'or equivalent experience' escape clause.
No overall years-of-experience figure is stated in the posting.
The role is listed as partial telecommute from a commutable distance to San Jose — not fully remote.
Excel appears only in the context of creating analytical visualizations ('Python and/or Excel') within the required skills section; it is listed as an alternative to Python for visualization and is treated as preferred given the 'and/or' framing alongside a clearly dominant tool.
Read the full posting
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