Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Team Lead (Active Secret Clearance)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Team Lead (Active Secret Clearance) based in the United States.

Join a mission-driven engineering team developing advanced AI systems for complex, real-world government applications. In this senior technical leadership role, you will combine hands-on machine learning engineering with customer-facing collaboration, guiding solutions from initial design and data preparation through deployment and delivery. You will tackle challenging technical problems, shape production-ready systems, and help ensure AI models remain reliable, effective, and trustworthy beyond testing environments. Working closely with engineers, customers, and cross-functional teams, you will provide technical direction, mentor colleagues, and translate complex requirements into practical outcomes. The role offers a remote or hybrid working arrangement based out of Austin, Texas, with opportunities to engage directly with customers and contribute to impactful projects.

• Lead the design, development, and delivery of complex, production-level machine learning and AI solutions, from data shaping and analytics to end-user implementation.

• Serve as a hands-on technical contributor while providing leadership and guidance across engineering teams and customer environments.

• Define project scope, establish technical plans, coordinate resources, and drive execution through successful delivery.

• Build, train, evaluate, optimize, and deploy machine learning models for real-world applications.

• Design and implement algorithms, data structures, production analytics, and software architectures using appropriate engineering patterns and cloud technologies.

• Collaborate directly with customers to understand their challenges, translate feedback into technical requirements, and shape future solutions.

• Communicate technical concepts clearly and professionally to engineering teams, customers, and other stakeholders.

• Mentor and support engineers, fostering strong technical practices and effective collaboration across distributed teams.

• Travel to customer locations or project environments as required, with travel of up to 25%.

Requirements:

• Advanced degree in Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a related discipline, along with at least 10 years of relevant professional experience.

• Demonstrated ability to lead, manage, and mentor cross-functional engineering teams across office-based, remote, and customer-facing environments.

• Proven experience defining, scoping, planning, and executing complex technical solutions in production environments.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, including the ability to explain sophisticated technical topics clearly.

• Broad proficiency in programming languages used in machine learning, with strong expertise in Python and at least one systems programming language.

• Strong knowledge of algorithms, data structures, production analytics, software design patterns, and cloud-based development.

• Extensive experience building, training, evaluating, and/or optimizing the deployment of machine learning models.

• Proficiency with modern software engineering tools, workflows, and development practices.

• Active Secret security clearance or higher and U.S. citizenship are mandatory.

• Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% of the time.

Additional experience that would be valuable:

• Kubernetes (K8s) and horizontally scaled architectures.

• Messaging and streaming technologies such as NATS, Kafka, or RabbitMQ.

• Development of AI agents and agentic workflows.

• Working with complex and varied data types.

• Delivering technology solutions in secure government environments.

Benefits:

• Base salary: $230,000–$280,000 per year.

• Equity grants and cash bonuses as part of the total compensation package.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.

• Voluntary life, long-term disability, accident, and hospital indemnity insurance.

• Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options, including dependent care FSA.

• 401(k) retirement plan.

• Unlimited paid time off (PTO).

• Paid parental leave.

• Remote or hybrid working arrangements, with the hybrid option based in Austin, Texas.

We use an AI-powered matching process to ensure your application is reviewed quickly, objectively, and fairly against the role's core requirements. Our system identifies the top-fitting candidates, and this shortlist is then shared directly with the hiring company. The final decision and next steps (interviews, assessments) are managed by their internal team.

We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!

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