Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Job Title: Software / Machine Learning Engineer Location: Los Altos, CA (Hybrid – Local candidates only) • 90% remote with required onsite presence a few days per week. • Option 1: 4-day workweek (10-hour days) with Fridays off. • Option 2: Standard workweek (4 days remote, at least 1 day onsite). • Hiring managers typically onsite Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Contract Type: 3-month contract to start (potential to extend or convert to full-time) Role Overview We are seeking a Machine Learning Engineer with strong automotive industry experience and hands-on expertise in deep learning and PyTorch. The ideal candidate will be capable of reading research papers, translating them into practical projects, and collaborating with cross-functional teams in a dynamic environment. This role requires both technical excellence and strong interpersonal skills to thrive in a highly collaborative workplace. Key Responsibilities • Design, implement, and optimize machine learning models with a focus on automotive applications. • Translate cutting-edge research into practical ML solutions. • Work on large-scale model training, including VLMs and text-to-video models. • Utilize distributed training and optimization techniques such as quantization, mixed precision, model parallelism, data parallelism, and FSDP. • Collaborate with cross-functional teams, contribute to code reviews, and ensure best practices in software development. • Build and manage data pipelines, model serving systems, and cloud-based training environments. • Balance rapid prototyping with robust production-ready implementations. Required Skills & Experience • 4+ years of professional ML engineering experience in AI/ML-focused organizations. • Hands-on PyTorch expertise. • Strong automotive industry experience (highest priority). • Familiarity with state-of-the-art in behavior learning, language models, and/or computer vision. • Experience training large-scale foundation models (e.g., VLMs, text-to-video). • Proficiency in Python and software engineering best practices (unit testing, documentation, CI/CD, dependency management). • Familiarity with data pipelines, dataset management, model serving, and optimization. • Strong communication skills; personable, collaborative, and self-starter personality. Preferred Qualifications • Certifications in AI/ML (not required, but a plus). • Demonstrated ability to read research papers and implement projects based on them.