Senior Machine Learning Engineer

The role

Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Bring machine learning and language model services into a tightly controlled cloud environment, then verify they perform as well there as they do elsewhere. The work spans model serving, evaluation, pipeline migration, documentation and secure retrieval, and involves close work with production models and with the teams that handle compliance and accreditation.

What you'll do

• Launch hosted language and speech services inside a secured cloud boundary and optimize them for response quality, speed and spend.
• Relocate retrieval and modeling workflows to approved cloud services, keeping all data inside the accredited perimeter.
• Create assessments that measure correctness, source grounding and refusal handling, and share the findings with the client.
• Keep records of model releases, instruction templates, vetted container images and data origins to support the security authorization package.
• Add speech input to the product using a cloud speech service within the compliant boundary.
• Set up permissions and activity logging for the retrieval layer, collaborating with a full stack engineer.

What we're looking for

• U.S. citizenship or Green Card status is required for this role.
• Background running machine learning or large language model services at IL5 or above in a Department of Defense setting, spanning serving, testing and data flows.
• A minimum of one year working on builds inside a Department of Defense or US federal IL5 setting.
• Seven-plus years of experience shipping and operating machine learning models that handle live user load.
• Day-to-day accountability for running model services, covering release tracking, adapting models, protecting sensitive data and keeping audit trails.
• Substantial familiarity with cloud-hosted large language models, retrieval pipelines built on embedding search, and structured model testing.
• Track record of taking a product or model from concept to launch at a venture-backed startup or a large technology firm.
• Expertise in cloud-based AI platforms, with a major public cloud preferred and AWS or GCP also valued.
• A bachelor's degree in computer science or a STEM-related field.

Bonus points

• Prior work in a regulated or public-facing sector, such as public service, defense, banking or care delivery.
• Past experience as a founder or founding engineer.

Compensation and benefits

• Base salary: USD 200,000 to 275,000 per year
• Equity

Location and work model

• Los Altos, CA, United States or San Francisco, CA, United States
• On-site, 5 days a week
• Full-time