Machine Learning Engineer
Machine learning engineers in this role build and optimize systems that translate research models into production—spanning model serving infrastructure, inference performance tuning, and distributed training pipelines. They distinguish themselves by combining deep systems expertise with ML knowledge, working on problems like latency optimization, resource efficiency, and scaling models across heterogeneous hardware and platforms. These engineers typically sit within specialized teams focused on either search and retrieval, robotics, foundation models, or inference optimization, collaborating closely with research teams to operationalize cutting-edge architectures at scale.
Skills
What companies are looking for in this role.
Designing and implementing end-to-end machine learning pipelines from data preparation through model deployment
Training and fine-tuning large language models for specific tasks and domains
Optimizing machine learning models for inference efficiency and latency constraints
Integrating and deploying machine learning models into real-world systems and applications
Building and scaling distributed training infrastructure across multiple GPUs and compute nodes
Writing high-performance production code with strong software engineering fundamentals
Implementing reinforcement learning pipelines and reward modeling for model improvement
Designing data pipelines for sourcing, processing, filtering, and preparing training corpora at scale
Evaluating model performance through rigorous benchmarking and evaluation methodologies
Implementing post-training techniques including preference optimization and alignment
Developing multi-modal machine learning models that process images, video, and text
Architecting systems for real-time inference with strict latency and memory constraints
Designing and executing ablation studies to validate machine learning design decisions
Handling and processing large-scale unstructured data including images, video, and sensor streams
Profiling and identifying bottlenecks across the full machine learning stack
Building computer vision models for perception tasks including object detection and semantic understanding
Building observability and monitoring systems for production machine learning pipelines
Managing and optimizing cloud computing resources for machine learning workloads
Debugging complex distributed systems to identify root causes of performance degradation
Developing simulation environments for testing and validating autonomous systems
Implementing low-level optimizations including GPU kernel optimization and memory management
Understanding and optimizing communication primitives and synchronization across distributed systems
Processing and analyzing three-dimensional geometric data including point clouds and meshes
Designing agentic systems that orchestrate multiple models and decision-making components
Implementing knowledge distillation to transfer capabilities from large to smaller models
Collaborating with researchers to translate theoretical concepts into production implementations
Working cross-functionally with product, design, and engineering teams to deliver business impact
Staying current with machine learning research and rapidly incorporating new techniques
Defining clear technical roadmaps and breaking down ambiguous research problems into measurable milestones
Mentoring and guiding junior engineers in machine learning practices and technical problem-solving
Technology
The tools and technologies that define this role.
Open Jobs
300 open Machine Learning Engineer jobs across 67 companies.
Other Engineering roles
General-purpose software engineering roles focused on building and maintaining software systems. Covers generalist SWE positions that don't clearly fall into frontend, backend, fullstack, or other specialized tracks.
Engineers focused on server-side systems, APIs, services, and data processing pipelines. Includes roles explicitly labeled as backend or server-side development.
Engineers specializing in user-facing interfaces, web applications, and client-side development. Includes UI/UX engineering and web development roles.
Engineers working across the entire application stack, handling both frontend and backend responsibilities.
Engineers building and maintaining internal platforms, cloud infrastructure, compute systems, and developer tooling.