Lead, Machine Learning Ops Engineer

Duration: 6 Months - Contract-to-Hire Location: 100% remote - EST/CST hours Comp - 70-80/hour W2 / conversion salary of 140-160K base salary Client will not sponsor or transfer visas - no 3rd party candidates please Machine Learning Ops Engineer - Lead Drive the enterprise AI/ML platform strategy as a player/coach Lead—guiding a team of Machine Learning Operations Engineers while shaping end-to-end execution. In this hands-on leadership role, you’ll spend 70% advisory/planning and 30% keyboard and special initiative project work to ensure AI systems are built, operated, and governed with reliability, scalability, security, compliance, and cost efficiency—all aligned to business goals. Required Skills • Lead experience delivering MLOps platform strategy, execution, and roadmap guidance • Advanced proficiency in Python • Object-oriented architectural mastery across dynamically typed languages • Experience integrating and governing multi-language systems, including Python and JavaScript/TypeScript (enterprise platforms such as .NET experience helpful) • Leadership-level expertise in AI/ML platform engineering, including MLOps, LLMOps, and AIOps • Ability to define and enforce enterprise standards for AI model lifecycle management, including: • monitoring and reliability • governance • cost control • Deep understanding of AI system observability, including: • drift detection • evaluation frameworks • incident response • Strong experience with cloud architecture, security, compliance, and enterprise-scale deployments • Proven ability to guide technical decision-making and platform strategy • 6+ years of relevant experience • Experience in MLOps, DevOps, or related fields with a focus on enterprise-level solutions • Supervisory experience Highly preferred. • Experience specifically strengthening enterprise practices across generative AI and LLM-based systems • Demonstrated ability to translate observability and operational learnings into continuous platform improvements #TECH #remote