Founding ML Engineer (Senior)

AZX • Seattle, WA

87d

About The Position

We seek a Machine Learning (ML) Founding Software Engineer to help us deliver for our clients and invest in our platform. You’ll be one of the first full-time ML engineers and will have an enormous impact on all aspects of what we do. You'll join a company founded by experienced, successful veterans in climate and AI. The team brings exceptional expertise from Microsoft, AI2, ARM, acquired startups, and even a major utility, including PhDs, published ML researchers, and former industry executives. The role is initially 70% client delivery and 30% platform development, shifting to 50/50 over the first year. Some of our client projects are enterprise-style, and some are fast innovation cycles. Over time, we’ll be investing more in our own platform to accelerate client value.

Requirements

• 5+ years building and deploying ML systems in production environments.
• Expert-level Python and experience with PyTorch / TensorFlow.
• Deep expertise in at least one domain: NLP, Computer Vision, Time-Series, or Reinforcement Learning.
• Generative AI and LLM-related capabilities (e.g., prompt engineering, RAG, fine-tuning, LangChain, model evaluation tooling).
• MLOps and infrastructure automation (e.g., CI/CD for ML, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, MLflow, Kubeflow).
• Strong engineering fundamentals: system design, scalability, testing, and monitoring.
• Track record of translating ambiguous business problems into production ML solutions.
• Experience with cloud ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, or Azure ML).
• Champion for quality (model validation, reproducibility, monitoring, bias/variance checks).

Nice To Haves

• Experience in both startup and enterprise environments.
• Past work in energy, real estate, utilities, climate, or related fields.
• Experience with advanced ML/AI frameworks and techniques (e.g., PyTorch Lightning, JAX, HuggingFace, ONNX optimizations).
• Experience with lower-level or performance-focused languages for ML acceleration (e.g., C++, Rust, CUDA).
• Experience with large-scale data and distributed training paradigms (e.g., Spark, Ray, Horovod, Dask).
• Experience with advanced data infrastructure (e.g., vector/graph databases, feature stores, data lakes).

Responsibilities

• Turn ambiguous client problems into shipping code.
• Drive projects from discovery to deployment.
• Collaborate with client and internal project teams.
• Design and write clean, scalable code at appropriate quality standards.
• Design, integrate, and productionize ML solutions including predictive models, GenAI systems, physics-informed ML, and digital twins.
• Collaborate with domain experts in energy, real estate, and climate to translate business needs into ML solutions.
• Advocate for engineering best practices and positive dev culture.

Benefits

• Competitive early-stage startup compensation (based on capabilities, experience, and location).
• Bonus eligibility.
• Health insurance with meaningful coverage for dependents.
• Flexible paid time off.
• Equity.
• Fully remote culture with a cluster of teammates in Seattle.
• Training and learning opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior