Applied AI in Finance Co-op

Job Description

Co-Op, Finance | Lila Sciences

The Tone:
This Co-Op role at Lila Sciences offers a unique opportunity within the company’s Finance function. Lila Sciences is dedicated to building Scientific Superintelligence™ by combining advanced AI models with proprietary instruments to autonomously execute the entire scientific method. This role is crucial for embedding AI capabilities directly into core Finance operations—including Strategic Finance, FP&A, Procurement, and Accounting—moving beyond informal experimentation to deliver tangible, deployed tools. The work shipped by this co-op will be immediately integrated into the team’s processes, making a direct impact on efficiency and accuracy.

The TL;DR
• Role: Early Career
• Type: Temporary
• Team: Embedded within the Finance organization
• Mission: This person solves the challenge of integrating AI directly into core finance functions by identifying high-impact use cases, prototyping effective tools, and rigorously measuring their operational gains.
• Tech Stack: ERP, FP&A, expense, procurement systems, LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, or similar)

What You’ll Actually Do
• Integration: Quickly familiarize yourself with the Finance team’s existing tech stack including ERP, FP&A, expense, and procurement systems.
• Identification: Collaborate with FP&A, Procurement, Accounting, and Strategic Finance to pinpoint high-value AI applications.
• Development: Prototype tools utilizing LLM APIs against Finance workflows and internal data from current systems, scoping ambiguous problems into shippable proof-of-concept tools.
• Evaluation: Measure the time savings, accuracy gains, and adoption impact generated by each prototype.
• Implementation: Document successful processes, capture best practices, and support the broader rollout of successful pilots from prototype to team-wide use.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Currently pursuing an undergraduate or master’s degree with finance or business coursework sufficient to partner credibly with FP&A, Procurement, and Accounting stakeholders.
• Experience: Hands-on experience using an LLM API (Anthropic, OpenAI, or similar) to build something beyond chat; available for the full July to December term.
• Skills: Comfort ramping quickly on unfamiliar business software and integrating against it, strong written communication, and ability to scope ambiguous problems into shippable prototypes.
• Bonus: Exposure to forecasting, variance analysis, or financial reporting workflows; prior hands-on use of ERP, FP&A, expense, or procurement platforms; experience working with internal datasets or data pipelines; familiarity with evaluating and measuring AI tool impact.