San Francisco, CA, United States

Remote Full-Time or Contractor | Candidates who can work within UTC-8 to UTC+2 to align with our team.

We’re looking for an experienced Lead Software Engineer (Machine Learning) to take ownership of a new AI/ML backend system that integrates machine learning models with large-scale data. This is a highly technical, hands-on role where you will drive architecture, implementation, and technical leadership from the start. If you’ve led complex engineering projects, built production-grade AI-powered systems, and are excited to help shape a new project, we’d love to hear from you.

About the Role

You’ll be responsible for leading the design and development of a Python-based backend service integrating AI/ML models and structured data systems. The role will require you to design scalable APIs, data ingestion pipelines, and real-time query services that serve AI-powered features across our platform. You will operate with significant autonomy, define the technical architecture, and deliver production-ready systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, design, and development of Python backend services integrating AI/ML models with structured data.
• Lead all aspects of system design, including API architecture, data ingestion, scalability, fault tolerance, observability, and performance.
• Deliver production-quality code while driving high engineering standards, best practices, and code reviews.
• Collaborate with product managers, ML researchers, program managers, and other engineers to translate product goals into technical solutions.
• Work independently while keeping stakeholders aligned on progress and priorities.

Note: This role could be either full-time or as a temporary contractor. We're open to hearing what you're interested in! This is a hands-on role with much ownership on building production systems that combine APIs with AI models. Experience with graph databases like Neo4j is a plus.

What We’re Looking For:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong track record of independently designing and delivering complex backend systems.
• Deep expertise in Python, particularly for backend API services and AI/ML integration.
• Hands-on experience with FastAPI (or comparable modern Python web frameworks).
• Experience integrating AI/ML models into production systems (LLMs, transformers, fine-tuning, etc.).
• Strong system design, data modeling, and architectural thinking.
• Familiarity with scalable ingestion pipelines, asynchronous processing, and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS), CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and observability.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with knowledge graphs or graph databases (e.g., Neo4j).
• MLOps experience (model deployment, pipelines, monitoring, retraining workflows).
• Prior collaboration with ML research teams.
• Experience in early-stage, product-driven environments.
• Prior technical leadership or engineering management experience.