Leader of Machine Learning Engineering

Credit Acceptance is proud to be an award-winning company with local and national workplace recognition in multiple categories! Our world-class culture is shaped by dedicated Team Members who share a drive to succeed as professionals and together as a company. A great product, amazing people and our stable financial history have made us one of the largest used car finance companies nationally.

Our Engineering and Analytics Team Members utilize the latest technology to develop, monitor, and maintain complex practices that help optimize our success. Our Team Members value being challenged, are encouraged to express their ideas, and have the flexibility to enjoy work life balance. We build intrinsic value by partnering with all functions of our business to support their success and make strategic business decisions. We focus on professional development and continuous improvement while enjoying a casual work environment and Great Place to Work culture!

We are hiring a Leader of Machine Learning Engineering to work on our GenAI platform transforming the lives of all our customers: employees, dealers and customers. The ML/AI team at Credit Acceptance is a part of our Engineering team, which has a mission to bring innovation and modernization to the auto-lending industry. As an MLE leader at Credit Acceptance, you will play a pivotal role in the success of this mission as you would lead the development of AI-powered solutions across different business areas. This involves understanding the business processes, identifying new opportunities to add value using ML/AI algorithms and harnessing data sources to build state-of-the-art ML/AI solutions,

Outcomes and Activities:

• This position will work from home; occasional planned travel to an assigned Southfield, Michigan office location may be required. However, this position is permitted to work at a Southfield, Michigan office location if requested by the team member
• Identify and build the solutions for various GenAI problems and manage the end-to-end lifecycle from scoping and adaptation to application integration, monitoring and performance management.
• Investigate the machine learning methodologies, including deep learning, LLM, and graph NN, to address diverse challenges across different business verticals and customers.
• Build and deploy contextual ChatBots and analytical tools providing bespoke responses to internal and external customers across different platforms 
• Develop LLM models trained and fine-tuned on internal multi modal data (ex: documents, policies, Pdfs, graphs, text, etc.) for a totally new set of problems 
• Solve many open-ended problems as overall owner and foster a culture of widespread ML utilization 

Competencies: The following items detail how you will be successful in this role.

• Customer Empathy: Customer Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives, pain points, and experiences of customers. It involves actively putting oneself in the customer’s shoes, comprehending their needs and challenges, and using that understanding to provide a better, more customer-centric experience.
• Engineering Excellence: Engineering Excellence is about bringing great craftsmanship and thought leadership to deliver an outstanding product that delights customers and solves for the business. This involves the pursuit and achievement of high standards, best practices, innovation, and superior solutions.
• One Team: A One Team mindset refers to a collaborative approach across the organization, where individuals work together seamlessly, without boundaries, as a single, cohesive team. Shared goals, open communication and mutual support create a sense of collective purpose. This enables teams to navigate challenges and pursue shared objectives more effectively.
• Owner’s Mindset: Owner’s Mindset involves adopting a set of behaviors that reflect a sense of responsibility, accountability, strategic thinking, and a proactive approach to managing your domain. As an owner, you understand the business and your domain(s) deeply and solve for the right outcome for the domain(s) and the business.

Requirements:

• PhD in Computer Science, Stats, Economics, or relevant technical field with at least 8+ years of relevant experience or MS with at least 10+ years of experience 
• 8+ years of experience building and deploying Deep Learning models including Reinforcement algorithms, Recommendation systems, etc. with solid understanding of the mathematics, advanced statistics and engineering behind building such infra 
• Previous experience in a leadership position
• Extensive experience and technical expertise in Python, ML tools and frameworks (Scikit-Learn, Tensorflow, PyTorch, Keras,)
• Proven track record in building and leading teams of experienced ML engineers/scientists. 
• Solid understanding of the fundamentals of statistics, optimization, and ML theory, focusing on NLP and/or Computer Vision algorithms. 
• Ability to understand and align with business expectations, and write clear and concise OKRs (Objectives and Key Results).4 
• Experience as a "Responsible Owner" for ML services in enterprise environments. 
• Excellent grasp of computer science fundamentals and SDLC best practices. 
• Ability to understand business objectives and align ML problem definition. 
• Strong communication skills to effectively convey technical information and ideas at all levels, building trust with stakeholders. 

Preferred:

• Demonstrable experience in parameter-efficient fine-tuning, model quantization, and quantization-aware fine-tuning of LLM models. 
• Experience in implementing distributed/multi-threaded/scalable applications 
• Hands-on knowledge of Chain-of-Thoughts, Tree-of-Thoughts, Graph-of-Thoughts prompting strategies. 
• Experience in designing and implementing pipelines using DAGs (e.g., Kubeflow, DVC, Ray). 
• Ability to construct batch and streaming microservices exposed as gRPC and/or GraphQL endpoints.

Targeted Total Compensation: A competitive base salary + an annual variable bonus (cash and equity) will range from $179,688 to $342,500. This position may also be eligible for a sign-on RSU grant

Final compensation within the range is influenced by many factors including role-specific skills, depth and experience level, industry background, relevant education and certifications, and geographic location.

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Benefits

• Excellent benefits package that includes 401(K) match, adoption assistance, parental leave, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive medical/ dental/vision and many nonstandard benefits that make us a Great Place to Work 

Our Company Values:

To be successful in this role, Team Members need to be:

• Positive by maintaining resiliency and focusing on solutions
• Respectful by collaborating and actively listening
• Insightful by cultivating innovation, accumulating business and role specific knowledge, demonstrating self-awareness and making quality decisions
• Direct by effectively communicating and conveying courage
• Earnest by taking accountability, applying feedback and effectively planning and priority setting

To create an environment where people do their best work, we focus on the dimensions of Organizational Health. All leaders must:

• Identify the Right People by recognizing top talent
• Set Clear Expectations by managing change and directing others
• Train team members and focus on developing talent
• Performance Manage by ensuring accountability and driving results
• Create the Right Environment by establishing trust and managing conflict
• Maintain the Right Number of team members needed to build an effective team

Expectations:

• Remain compliant with our policies processes and legal guidelines
• All other duties as assigned
• Attendance as required by department

Advice

We understand that your career search may look different than others. Our hiring team wants to make sure that this would be a fit not just for us, but for you long term. If you are actively looking or starting to explore new opportunities, send us your application!

P.S

We have great details around our stats, success, history and more. We’re proud of our culture and are happy to share why – let’s talk!

Required degrees must have been earned at institutions of Higher Education which are accredited by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or equivalent.

Credit Acceptance is dedicated to providing a safe and inclusive working environment for all. As part of our Culture of Compliance, we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and value our culturally diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of the person’s age, race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status, criminal history, or any other legally protected characteristic.

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