Staff Machine Learning Engineer

primer.ai

$160K — $190K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • BS, MS, or PhD in computer science or related field or equivalent practical experience
  • 6+ years of experience building production backend software with ML-driven functionality
  • Strong grasp of data structures and algorithms, with the ability to create user-focused solutions
  • Hands-on expertise with large language models (LLMs) and agentic systems along with ML tools like PyTorch
  • Fluent in Python for production APIs, with Rust experience advantageous
  • Demonstrated capability in navigating fast-paced, ambiguous environments with a proactive approach

Responsibilities

  • Set technical and product vision for LLM, agentic, and NLP systems, influencing AI experiences
  • Design and build distributed systems for company-wide scale involving conversational agents
  • Transform complex real-world data into actionable insights and reliable AI signals
  • Lead all stages from model checkpoint to production with a focus on reliability under load
  • Create evaluation methods and data systems that enhance project outcomes
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to influence technical direction and address operational issues
  • Elevate engineering standards through improved practices and mentoring

Benefits

  • Flexible vacation policy and Wellness Days
  • 100% paid leave for parents
  • Comprehensive health benefits including medical, dental, and vision
  • Fertility benefits and mental health coverage
  • 401(k) retirement plan
  • Remote work stipends and monthly internet allowance
  • Commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace
Full Job Description
As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, you'll own AI-driven products end to end, from the prototype that proves an idea works to the production system the mission depends on. You work fluently across the modern stack: large language models, agentic systems, retrieval, embeddings, fine-tuned models, and the evaluation harnesses that catch them when they drift. You can move fast on an open-ended problem and then harden the result into something reliable at scale, drawing on real distributed-systems experience. You're energized by what frontier models and agents make newly possible. You reach for them reflexively, including to multiply your own output, and you raise the level of everyone around you as you go. Your technical range matters as much as your judgment about how the pieces fit together. The best work here is designed as part of the whole system, not bolted on beside it, and the engineers with the most impact bring product managers and teammates along with them rather than around them. You'll partner with product, engineering, and other technical leaders on the hardest version of the problem: putting real AI in the hands of people the moment a decision can't wait. Role and Responsibilities - How You Will Make an Impact • Set both technical and product direction, making the strategic bets across our LLM, agentic, and NLP systems while shaping how we design AI-driven experiences and set expectations with users. • Design and build the distributed, agentic systems behind our products at company-wide scale: tool-using conversational agents, multi-turn context, retrieval-grounded reasoning, and the orchestration that ties them together. • Turn massive, messy, real-world data into the trustworthy signal agents' reason over: entity recognition and linking, relation extraction, summarization, semantic search, and knowledge-graph generation. • Take models from checkpoint to production: package, deploy, and operate low-latency, high-concurrency inference (Triton, vLLM, GPU-backed serving) that stays fast and reliable under real load. • Build the evals and labeled-data flywheels that steer the work rather than gate it, turning "it feels better" into proof you can act on. • Partner with and influence cross-functional teams to shape the technical roadmap, and drive issues to root cause when quality or operations are on the line. • Raise the engineering bar with better patterns, better practices, and a standard other engineers want to match. Relevant Skills and Experience • BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience. • 6+ years building production backend software, with a track record of shipping and operating ML-driven functionality. • Mastery of data structures and algorithms, and the judgment to translate user needs into practical solutions. • Hands-on depth with LLMs and agentic systems (prompt and context engineering, tool use, retrieval and RAG) and the broader ML toolkit such as PyTorch, plus experience defining evals to measure and improve quality. • Fluency authoring production APIs in Python (Rust a plus). • High agency and a bias to action in ambiguous, fast-moving problems, plus the curiosity, generosity, and love of teaching that lifts a whole team. Bonus Points • Experience with knowledge graphs, information retrieval at scale, or LLM fine-tuning and post-training. • A pull toward high-stakes, real-world problems where the work actually ships and someone depends on the answer. What We Offer We are a series D funded company with investors from Addition, USIT, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Addition Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and others. We are intentional around building a diverse and inclusive team of subject matter experts to better advocate for the needs of our users. We care a lot about our work and about the well being of our team. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy for team members to utilize, Wellness Days and 100% paid leave for parents of growing families. We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. This includes full medical, dental, and vision coverage, fertility benefits through Carrot, mental health coverage on demand with Headspace Care+, Gympass+ Membership via Wellhub, One Medical Membership, 401(k), remote work stipends, and monthly internet allowance.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at primer.ai

More Information Technology Jobs

Find similar Staff Machine Learning Engineer jobs: