Founding Staff ML Engineer (Tech Lead)

About the Role We’re seeking an experienced Lead Machine Learning Engineer to spearhead our AI innovations and deliver cutting-edge, scalable ML solutions. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll architect state-of-the-art machine learning systems, mentor a team of passionate engineers, and shape our technical strategy as we evolve our enterprise-grade AI products. Key Responsibilities 💡 Technical Leadership & Strategy: Drive the ML and backend roadmap with strategic planning and architecture reviews. 🤖 ML Product Development: Experiment, develop, and scale new machine learning products. Leverage advanced techniques such as LLM fine-tuning and embedding techniques to power intelligent automation. 🔧 Operational Excellence: Design end-to-end ML pipelines, monitor production systems, troubleshoot issues, and ensure seamless service through effective debugging and on-call rotations. 🎨 Collaboration & Innovation: Translate product requirements into scalable ML designs by collaborating with product managers, full stack engineers, and UX designers. Stay ahead of trends like serverless ML deployments to keep our stack efficient. 🚀 Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of continuous learning by exploring the latest industry trends and encouraging experimentation within the team. Nice-to-Have Skills • Background in VC-backed startups or scaling ML solutions at large tech companies. • Familiarity with managed Lora AI deployment platforms for ML workloads, like Together, Fireworks, and Replicate. Qualifications • Experience fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) for industry-specific applications. • Expertise in optimizing LLM prompts and integrating ML solutions into production environments. • Expertise in developing RAG pipelines for citations and similar • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience). • 5+ years of professional experience in software development and machine learning at a reputable company. • Deep expertise in machine learning experimentation best practices, data processing, and model deployment. • A strong grasp of product experience as they relate to ML-powered products. • Excellent communication and teamwork skills, with a passion for mentoring and leading technical teams. • An entrepreneurial mindset with a keen interest in innovation and the startup ecosystem (bonus points for aspiring founders).