Staff ML Engineer

We're building AI&ML-powered products that will transform how Group 1001 approaches pricing optimization, claims automation, and risk intelligence. To do this at scale, we need robust ML infrastructure—not just great models.

As a Staff ML Engineer, you'll focus on the MLOps and infrastructure layer that makes ML production-ready: model serving, feature pipelines, experiment tracking, and CI/CD for ML. You'll help shape our ML platform architecture, working alongside Platform Engineering teams to ensure ML workloads run reliably on our modern stack: Snowflake, Dagster, Coalesce, Palantir and AWS SageMaker.

This role is for engineers who are as passionate about infrastructure, deployment, and operationalizing ML as they are about the models themselves

*Please note, this position requires an in-person interview.

• Partner with Data & Platform Engineering to define how ML workloads integrate with our Snowflake-Dagster-Palantir ecosystem

• Evaluate and recommend tooling for the ML stack—balancing build vs. buy decisions against our scale and compliance needs

• Contribute to platform roadmap discussions, advocating for infrastructure investments that accelerate ML delivery

• Establish CI/CD pipelines for ML: automated testing, model validation, staged deployments, and rollback capabilities using SageMaker Pipelines, Step Functions, or similar orchestration

• Implement model monitoring and observability: drift detection, performance degradation alerts, and automated retraining triggers

• Architect ML workloads on AWS: SageMaker (Training Jobs, Processing, Endpoints), EC2/EKS for custom serving, S3 for artifact storage, and IAM for secure access patterns

• Optimize for cost and performance—right-sizing instances, spot instance strategies, auto-scaling endpoints, and efficient GPU utilization

• Integrate ML infrastructure with our Dagster orchestration layer for end-to-end pipeline visibility

• Mentor senior ML engineers and technical leads, developing the next generation of ML engineering leadership

Technical Skills:

• MLOps & Model Serving: Hands-on experience with model serving frameworks (SageMaker Endpoints, Seldon Core, BentoML, Ray Serve, or TensorFlow Serving); building and operating inference infrastructure at scale

• CI/CD for ML: Building ML pipelines with SageMaker Pipelines, Kubeflow, Airflow, or Dagster; automated model testing, validation gates, and deployment automation

• AWS & Cloud Infrastructure: Strong AWS experience—SageMaker, EKS/ECS, Lambda, Step Functions, S3, IAM; infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK, CloudFormation)

• Monitoring & Observability: Model monitoring, drift detection, alerting; tools like Evidently, WhyLabs, SageMaker Model Monitor, or custom solutions

• Core ML Fundamentals: Working knowledge of Python, ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn), and model evaluation—enough to partner effectively with data scientists

• Feature Engineering Infrastructure: Experience with feature stores (SageMaker Feature Store, Feast, Tecton, or similar); designing feature pipelines for both batch and real-time serving

• Experiment Tracking & Registry: MLflow, Weights & Biases, SageMaker Experiments, or similar; establishing reproducibility and governance across ML projects

• Nice to Have: Palantir Foundry, Kubernetes, Bedrock, cost optimization strategies for ML workloads

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field

• Master's degree or equivalent experience preferred

Experience:

• 6-10 years in ML engineering, MLOps, or platform engineering with a focus on productionizing ML systems

• Demonstrated experience building ML infrastructure that others build upon—serving layers, feature stores, or MLOps tooling

• Track record of improving ML delivery velocity through infrastructure and automation

• Proven ability to work cross-functionally with data scientists, platform engineers, and stakeholders

• Experience mentoring and developing senior engineers and technical leaders

• Strong executive presence with ability to influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in insurance or financial services with deep understanding of industry challenges

• Recognized expertise through conference presentations, publications, or industry speaking engagements

• Experience with enterprise-scale systems and complex technical environments

• Proven ability to build consensus and drive alignment across multiple teams and stakeholders

Competencies and Soft Skills:

• Executive presence with ability to influence senior leadership and drive organizational change

• Strategic vision with ability to define long-term technical direction aligned with business goals

• Strong leadership skills with proven ability to develop and mentor senior technical talent

• Exceptional communication skills with ability to articulate technical strategy to executive audiences

• Political acumen with ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics and build consensus

Compensation: 
 
Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $190,000/year in our lowest geographic market up to $215,000/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on factors such as market location, job-related skills, and experience.