Senior / Principal AI Engineer

Role: Senior / Principal AI Engineer Location: 100% Remote (Global) Job Type: Contract, Hourly Hours: Flexible About Us & The Opportunity We are a small, ambitious team of deeply experienced software engineers building distributed applications for Linux. Our culture is built on a foundation of mutual respect, technical excellence, and a shared passion for solving complex problems. Our core philosophy is simple: we hire professionals and we trust you to choose the best tools and methods for the job. We believe that the best work comes from trusting talented people to do what they do best, without the distractions of corporate bureaucracy. We are looking for a seasoned AI Engineer to join our team of peers. This is a role for someone who loves to build and ship impactful ML solutions. There are no unnecessary meetings, no layers of management, and no rigid schedules. You will have a high degree of autonomy and will be expected to own your work from problem formulation to production deployment. We’re a friendly, relaxed, and highly technical group that values a stress-free environment where you can focus on the fun parts of engineering. We are committed to the well-being and growth of our team members, both professionally and personally. We don't care about your age, location, time zone, or gender. We care about your work, your ideas, your track record, and your productivity (and you too, of course). What You'll Be Doing • Owning the entire machine learning lifecycle, from initial project scoping and data analysis to model deployment and monitoring. • Architecting novel solutions by designing, building, and iterating on custom model architectures tailored to specific business problems. • Mastering the data, including data wrangling, cleaning, and performing sophisticated feature engineering to maximize model performance. • Conducting rigorous experimentation, including model selection, hyperparameter tuning, and meticulous experiment tracking to ensure reproducible, high-quality results. • Collaborating directly with other senior-level engineers in a focused, highly productive environment. • Solving challenging technical problems related to model performance, scalability, and integration into larger systems. Required Skills & Experience • A minimum of 7-10 years of professional experience building and deploying production-level machine learning models. • Demonstrable mastery of the end-to-end ML lifecycle. You must have a deep, practical understanding of: • Defining and measuring data project success. • Data wrangling and feature engineering. • Model selection and validation strategies. • Model architecture creation and modification. • Systematic experiment tracking and result analysis. • Strong computer science fundamentals, including a deep understanding of data structures, algorithms, and software design principles. • A proven track record of successfully architecting and delivering impactful ML projects. • Proficiency in Python and standard ML libraries (e.g., Scikit-learn, Pandas, NumPy) and at least one major deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow). • Ability to work independently and productively with minimal supervision. Priority will be given to engineers who can also be client-facing. Although we’re looking for skill, we hire humans first. Bonus Skills • Experience with MLOps practices (e.g., CI/CD for models, automated retraining, model monitoring). • Familiarity with advanced domains like Reinforcement Learning (RL), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), or Transformers. • Proficiency with PyTorch and its C++ API (LibTorch). • Experience with modern C++ (C++17 or newer) in a production environment. What We Offer • Complete Autonomy & Trust: You are the expert. We'll give you the goals and trust you to deliver. • A "No-Meetings" Culture: We value deep work. We only meet if it's absolutely critical and efficient. Your time is for building things that matter. • Flexible Hours: We are a results-oriented team. Work the hours that make you most productive, from anywhere in the world. • A Team of Experts: You will work exclusively with other highly-experienced and dedicated professionals who you can learn from and collaborate with. • Stress-Free Environment: We focus on engineering, not politics or bureaucracy. We actively support your well-being and personal development. • Competitive Contract Rate: We pay well for exceptional talent. How to Apply If you are a passionate AI Engineer who values craftsmanship and autonomy, we would love to hear from you. Please send your resume along with a brief note detailing: 1. Your GitHub links or other professional works. 1. Your resume (PDF or website preferred). 1. An ML project you are particularly proud of. Please describe the problem, your approach (data, feature engineering, model architecture), the outcome, and provide links to the source code if possible. 1. Your desired hourly contract rate. Thanks for your time, and we wish you the best in your search. Please email steve.sperandeo@clustera.io for applications, or reach out on LinkedIn. Please ensure that you answer each of the questions listed above. Thank you.