AI Engineer

Burford Capital is the leading global finance and asset management firm focused on law. Its businesses include litigation finance and risk management, asset recovery and a wide range of legal finance and advisory activities. Burford is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUR) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE: BUR), and it works with companies and law firms around the world from its principal offices in New York, London, Chicago, Washington, Singapore, and Dubai.

Burford is hiring an AI Engineer to join our Software & Data team, which designs, builds, and scales systems that process real-time legal documents and apply various forms of AI to support investment decision-making and business development. This role is well-suited to an early career engineer who is eager to learn, grow, and take on meaningful responsibility in a fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment.

The Software Engineer will be a core contributor to Burford's AI and data infrastructure. They will help ensure our systems are reliable, scalable, and able to adapt to the evolving needs of the business. This role involves working directly with colleagues across teams-underwriting and business development-to translate business requirements into technical solutions. Success will require adaptability, creativity, and a strong sense of initiative in seeking out answers and solutions, whether from teammates, external resources, or modern development tools.

The base compensation range for this role is $130,000 - $150,000. Burford also pays a discretionary annual bonus and provides welcome Restricted Stock Units to all full-time employees.

The role will report to the AI Lead on the Software & Data team and can be based in Burford's New York office.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Burford Capital is the largest and most experienced provider of commercial finance to the legal sector in the world, with a core expertise in identifying and optimizing the value of legal assets for companies and law firms. Since its founding in 2009, Burford has worked with hundreds of law firms and corporations, including 94 of the AmLaw 100 and 92 of the Global 100 largest law firms. Our team has grown from five people at the end of 2009 to over 150 people today, including over 45 lawyers.

Burford possesses the resources and expertise of a large company while retaining the flexibility and creativity of a startup. Team members are smart, creative, collaborative, curious, and confident. Everyone rolls up their sleeves to perform and engage collectively for the overall success of the business. Burford values rigorous thinking, clear communication, and efficient execution. Burford is an "always on" environment in which everyone needs to be accessible by email when outside the office, including during evenings and weekends

Burford pays base salaries consistent with the financial services industry and favors incentive compensation to reward performance. Burford provides competitive health care benefits and a 401k matching program. Burford Capital is committed to increasing diversity and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, marital status, whether or not they have a disability.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS

System Development & Optimization
• Build and enhance Burford's AI-driven systems for processing real-time legal documents.
• Ensure reliability, scalability, and accuracy across complex data pipelines - including web scrapers, external/internal APIs, and constantly evolving collections of data from business users
• Proactively identify and implement opportunities for improving system performance and efficiency.

Collaboration & Business Impact
• Contribute to long-term improvements in Burford's AI and data infrastructure.
• Develop features that help decision-makers access insights quickly and intuitively.
• Work directly with underwriting, business development, and legal teams to translate needs into practical, effective tools.

Learning & Resourcefulness
• Approach challenges with initiative and persistence, leveraging a wide range of resources-including colleagues and modern AI-assisted development tools-to find solutions.
• Adapt quickly to new responsibilities and areas of focus as business needs evolve.
• Seek continuous growth in both technical and business knowledge.

SKILLS DESIRED

Qualifications & Experience
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, Data Science, or related technical field.
• Fluency in Python and familiarity with modern development practices.
• Experience in building, testing, and deploying LLM-based applications, as well as experience using relevant AI stack (e.g. LLM frameworks, vector databases, etc.)
• Experience with databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) and the basics of frontend development (React / Typescript).
• Familiarity with AI tools for development is a plus (e.g. Cursor)
• Experience with machine learning is a plus (e.g. fine-tuning models, building neural nets from scratch, etc.)
• Comfort with cloud environments is a plus (e.g. Azure)

Core Competencies & Skills / Personal Attributes & Fit
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability; some minimal level of mathematical fluency is essential (e.g. comfortability with vectors, matrices, probability, etc.)
• Demonstrated initiative and persistence in tackling new challenges.
• Collaborative working style with the ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Ability to adapt quickly and learn new concepts in a dynamic environment.
• Evidence of interest in the law or the social sciences is a plus.

Professional Development

The Software Engineer will benefit from the following opportunities:
• Opportunities to learn how AI and data systems are applied in a unique and growing sector of finance.
• Exposure to Burford's investment process.
• Mentorship from senior engineers

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