PermitFlow is redefining how America builds. Pre-construction remains one of the most broken and manual parts of the $1.6T construction industry, causing massive delays, wasted capital, and lost opportunity across the built world. Our AI workforce delivers unprecedented speed, accuracy, and visibility to pre-construction — accelerating housing development, enabling clean-energy projects, and driving economic growth in communities nationwide. To date, we’ve powered over $20B in real estate development, helping builders and contractors move faster, reduce risk, and scale with confidence.
We’re entering hypergrowth with clear product-market fit and a world-class team from top AI and construction companies. We’ve raised over $36.5M from Kleiner Perkins, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, Felicis Ventures, and Altos Ventures, alongside backers from OpenAI, Google, Procore, ServiceTitan, Zillow, PlanGrid, and Uber. We are on a mission is to modernize how the built world operates.
Our HQ is in New York City with a hybrid schedule (3 in-office days per week). Preference for NYC-based candidates or those open to relocation.
✅ What You’ll DoAs an Applied Machine Learning Engineer, you will develop the ML foundation for PermitFlow’s AI agents. You’ll design, prototype, and deploy intelligent systems that process documents, extract insights, and power autonomous permitting workflows. You will own the end-to-end ML lifecycle, from model research and data engineering to production deployment and continuous evaluation.
You will:
Design, implement, and optimize LLM-powered models for document processing, data extraction, and permit workflow automation
Develop retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and search/retrieval systems for jurisdictional and regulatory data
Rapidly prototype, fine-tune, and evaluate pre-trained models for real-world NLP tasks like classification, entity recognition, and summarization
Build scalable ML infrastructure and backend services, integrating models into production systems that power AI agents
Work with large structured and unstructured datasets to improve indexing, retrieval, and contextual accuracy
Own the full ML lifecycle: experimentation, deployment, monitoring, evaluation, and iteration
Balance ML, retrieval, and rule-based approaches to ship reliable, maintainable, and high-impact AI features
Collaborate with engineering, product, and domain experts to shape ML-powered solutions for complex pre-construction challenges
5+ years of experience in machine learning engineering, with production ML experience
Deep expertise in NLP and LLMs (OpenAI GPT, Claude, Hugging Face models)
Experience building retrieval and vector search systems (e.g., FAISS, Elasticsearch, Pinecone, Weaviate)
Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow
Strong track record of deploying and scaling ML systems with measurable business impact
Experience with cloud ML infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
Strong system design and architectural thinking, with a bias toward shipping and iterating quickly
Comfort operating in fast-moving startup environments with high ownership and autonomy
💙 Benefits
📈 Competitive salary and meaningful equity
🩺 100% paid health, dental, and vision coverage
💻 Company laptop and equipment stipend
🍽️ Daily meals via UberEats and a fully stocked kitchen
🚍 Commuter benefits
🎤 Team building events and offsites
🌴 Unlimited PTO
Top Skills
What We Do
PermitFlow is the nation's leading permit application and management platform. We help builders across the country to simplify and speed up the process of obtaining construction permits.
