Lead Machine Learning Engineer Job Description Template

The lead machine learning engineer sets technical direction for a machine learning team while remaining closely involved in the work. The role covers architecture, review standards, the prioritization of modeling effort and the judgment about which problems machine learning should be applied to at all, which is frequently the most valuable contribution.

Typical Duties and Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for machine learning work across the team
• Decide which problems justify a machine learning approach
• Own architecture for training and serving infrastructure
• Review models, evaluation design and production readiness
• Write code on the most complex or critical components
• Mentor machine learning engineers and scientists
• Establish standards for reproducibility and evaluation rigour
• Work with product on realistic capability and timelines
• Lead investigation of production model failures
• Represent machine learning work to stakeholders honestly

Education

• Master’s or PhD in a relevant field, or equivalent experience

Required Skills and Experience

• 7+ years in machine learning with production deployments
• Track record of models that delivered measurable value
• Deep understanding of evaluation, validation and their failure modes
• Strong engineering practice alongside modeling skill
• Ability to mentor and set standards
• Judgment about when a simpler approach is better
• Experience with production monitoring and retraining
• Clear communication with non technical stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience across multiple problem domains
• Publications or open source contributions