Principal Machine Learning Engineer Job Description Template

The principal machine learning engineer works across the organization on the hardest applied machine learning problems and sets technical standards that outlast any single project. The role is hands on and its influence comes from depth and written reasoning rather than reporting lines. It is often the person who determines whether the organization’s machine learning work is genuinely rigorous or merely busy.

Typical Duties and Responsibilities

• Solve the most difficult applied machine learning problems
• Set technical standards for modeling, evaluation and deployment
• Design machine learning architecture at organizational scale
• Review critical models and evaluation methodology across teams
• Mentor senior and lead engineers
• Evaluate emerging methods and decide what to adopt
• Advise leadership on feasibility and realistic expectations
• Drive improvements in reproducibility and experimental rigour
• Support senior technical hiring
• Publish or present the organization’s technical work where appropriate

Education

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

Required Skills and Experience

• 10+ years in machine learning with substantial production impact
• Recognized depth in one or more machine learning domains
• Ability to influence across teams through written design
• Strong engineering as well as research capability
• Judgment about the limits of what models can deliver
• Track record of raising standards in an organization
• Excellent technical writing
• Experience mentoring senior practitioners

Preferred Qualifications

• Publication record or recognized open source work
• Experience across research and production settings