{"schemaVersion":"jobsearcher.job.v1","id":"61a3ead434ddfa8a9f747050","url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/61a3ead434ddfa8a9f747050","canonicalUrl":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/61a3ead434ddfa8a9f747050","title":"Senior Machine Learning Engineer","description":"Join Our Talented Team at Protagonist\n\nWe fuse rigorous, methodologically sound analysis with our cutting-edge technology platform, Narrative Analytics®. This powerful combination enables us to quantitatively analyze open-source media, deliver strategic recommendations, and craft executive-level communication strategies for clients with missions that matter.\n\nWhy Us?\n\nOur team is a vibrant mix of communication specialists, data scientists, and subject matter experts with extensive experience across U.S. Government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. By joining Protagonist, you'll immerse yourself in a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, and your contributions truly matter.\n\nWhat We Do\nInnovative Solutions: We co-develop cutting-edge solutions with our clients to address tough communication problems and capitalize on opportunities to make a tangible impact.\nData-Driven Insights: Our tools and methodologies provide actionable insights that help clients meet their communication objectives and stay ahead of global challenges.\nApplied Expertise: We integrate our solutions within client organizations, leveraging our profound expertise to address critical issues and ensure sustainable success.\nBe Part of Something Bigger\n\nAt Protagonist, you'll work on compelling projects that make a real difference. We seek talented individuals eager to contribute to our mission and grow alongside us. If you're passionate about communication, data analysis, and making an impact, we invite you to explore a career with Protagonist.\n\nExplore Your Future with Us!\n\nReady to take the next step in your career? Join us at Protagonist and be part of a team that's making a difference.\n\nJob Description\n\nProtagonist is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer who builds production-ready systems for mission-critical work. You bring strong engineering discipline, systems thinking, and a bias toward scalable, well-architected solutions—owning the full ML lifecycle from design to deployment.\n\nYou're a builder and strategic partner across engineering, product, and client-facing teams, expanding what AI can do at Protagonist. You stay curious and current with advances in ML, infrastructure, and software development.\n\nResponsibilities\nPartner with product, engineering, and data science teams to identify high-impact NLP use cases and turn business needs into ML solutions that deliver measurable value\nOwn production NLP pipelines spanning narrative detection, NER, span classification, stance and characterization analysis, event extraction, deduplication, and knowledge-base entity linking over multi-language, noisy real-world text\nDesign, build, and operate production NLP pipelines, narrative detection, event classification, entity resolution and linking, deduplication — over multi-language, noisy real-world text at scale\nBuild and maintain ML workflows in Metaflow orchestrated on Argo Workflows and Kubernetes (EKS), including GPU-accelerated training and batch inference\nDevelop LLM-powered features on AWS Bedrock: RAG pipelines with vector search on OpenSearch, tool-using agents, and document-analysis workflows — within GovCloud/ITAR constraints\nFine-tune and deploy transformer models (classification, embeddings, entity linking) for domain-specific and foreign-language content\nEstablish ML evaluation frameworks regression testing, hallucination detection, quality metrics and define success criteria with product managers\nIntegrate ML services into our Django/PostgreSQL platform and event-driven infrastructure (Kafka, Redis, OpenSearch)\nLead technical discussions to align cross-functional teams on ML strategy, architecture, and implementation\nMentor others, share knowledge, and help evolve ML practices—balancing innovation with practical delivery\nRequirements\nU.S. person eligible to work on government contracts; active or prior SECRET clearance preferred\nBachelor's and 5 years of experience, or master's degree and 3 years of experience, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field\nProven track record building and deploying production ML systems, with deep NLP expertise (transformers, LLMs, embedding models)\nStrong Python skills and fluency with PyTorch and the Hugging Face ecosystem\nHands-on experience with AWS (GovCloud experience a strong plus), Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines\nExperience with ML orchestration and experiment tracking (e.g., Metaflow, Argo Workflows, MLflow, or similar)\nExperience with vector search and document indexing (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch or similar)\nExperience building LLM applications, RAG, agents, prompt engineering, and evaluation\nSkilled at scaling ML for multi-modal (text, image, video) and domain-specific applications, and working effectively across engineering, product, and business teams\nIdeal Candidates\nExperience integrating ML into full-stack products (Django/REST APIs, React frontends) or decision-support tools\nExperience operating in compliance-constrained environments\nStrong communicator and cross-functional collaborator\nSelf-starter who thrives in ambiguity and startup-like environments\nJoin Us\n\nIf you're passionate about technology and making an impact, apply today! Protagonist is dedicated to fostering a welcoming and innovative environment where everyone's voice can make a difference.\n\nProtagonist is an Equal Opportunity Employer.\n\nSalary Range: $95,000-$141,000 based on education and level of relevant experience.\n\nPursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.","company":"Protagonist","rawCompany":"protagonist","city":"Washington","state":"DC","isRemote":false,"isActive":false,"createdAt":"2026-08-27T09:02:00.530Z","occupations":[{"code":"15-2051.00","title":"Data Scientists","slug":"data-scientists"},{"code":"15-1252.00","title":"Software Developers","slug":"software-developers"},{"code":"15-1299.08","title":"Computer Systems Engineers/Architects","slug":"computer-systems-engineers-architects"}],"industries":[{"code":"541511","title":"Custom Computer Programming Services","slug":"custom-computer-programming-services"},{"code":"541512","title":"Computer Systems Design Services","slug":"computer-systems-design-services"},{"code":"541990","title":"All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services","slug":"all-other-professional-scientific-and-technical-services"}],"jobPosting":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"JobPosting","title":"Senior Machine Learning Engineer","description":"Join Our Talented Team at Protagonist\n\nWe fuse rigorous, methodologically sound analysis with our cutting-edge technology platform, Narrative Analytics®. This powerful combination enables us to quantitatively analyze open-source media, deliver strategic recommendations, and craft executive-level communication strategies for clients with missions that matter.\n\nWhy Us?\n\nOur team is a vibrant mix of communication specialists, data scientists, and subject matter experts with extensive experience across U.S. Government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. By joining Protagonist, you'll immerse yourself in a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, and your contributions truly matter.\n\nWhat We Do\nInnovative Solutions: We co-develop cutting-edge solutions with our clients to address tough communication problems and capitalize on opportunities to make a tangible impact.\nData-Driven Insights: Our tools and methodologies provide actionable insights that help clients meet their communication objectives and stay ahead of global challenges.\nApplied Expertise: We integrate our solutions within client organizations, leveraging our profound expertise to address critical issues and ensure sustainable success.\nBe Part of Something Bigger\n\nAt Protagonist, you'll work on compelling projects that make a real difference. We seek talented individuals eager to contribute to our mission and grow alongside us. If you're passionate about communication, data analysis, and making an impact, we invite you to explore a career with Protagonist.\n\nExplore Your Future with Us!\n\nReady to take the next step in your career? Join us at Protagonist and be part of a team that's making a difference.\n\nJob Description\n\nProtagonist is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer who builds production-ready systems for mission-critical work. You bring strong engineering discipline, systems thinking, and a bias toward scalable, well-architected solutions—owning the full ML lifecycle from design to deployment.\n\nYou're a builder and strategic partner across engineering, product, and client-facing teams, expanding what AI can do at Protagonist. You stay curious and current with advances in ML, infrastructure, and software development.\n\nResponsibilities\nPartner with product, engineering, and data science teams to identify high-impact NLP use cases and turn business needs into ML solutions that deliver measurable value\nOwn production NLP pipelines spanning narrative detection, NER, span classification, stance and characterization analysis, event extraction, deduplication, and knowledge-base entity linking over multi-language, noisy real-world text\nDesign, build, and operate production NLP pipelines, narrative detection, event classification, entity resolution and linking, deduplication — over multi-language, noisy real-world text at scale\nBuild and maintain ML workflows in Metaflow orchestrated on Argo Workflows and Kubernetes (EKS), including GPU-accelerated training and batch inference\nDevelop LLM-powered features on AWS Bedrock: RAG pipelines with vector search on OpenSearch, tool-using agents, and document-analysis workflows — within GovCloud/ITAR constraints\nFine-tune and deploy transformer models (classification, embeddings, entity linking) for domain-specific and foreign-language content\nEstablish ML evaluation frameworks regression testing, hallucination detection, quality metrics and define success criteria with product managers\nIntegrate ML services into our Django/PostgreSQL platform and event-driven infrastructure (Kafka, Redis, OpenSearch)\nLead technical discussions to align cross-functional teams on ML strategy, architecture, and implementation\nMentor others, share knowledge, and help evolve ML practices—balancing innovation with practical delivery\nRequirements\nU.S. person eligible to work on government contracts; active or prior SECRET clearance preferred\nBachelor's and 5 years of experience, or master's degree and 3 years of experience, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field\nProven track record building and deploying production ML systems, with deep NLP expertise (transformers, LLMs, embedding models)\nStrong Python skills and fluency with PyTorch and the Hugging Face ecosystem\nHands-on experience with AWS (GovCloud experience a strong plus), Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines\nExperience with ML orchestration and experiment tracking (e.g., Metaflow, Argo Workflows, MLflow, or similar)\nExperience with vector search and document indexing (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch or similar)\nExperience building LLM applications, RAG, agents, prompt engineering, and evaluation\nSkilled at scaling ML for multi-modal (text, image, video) and domain-specific applications, and working effectively across engineering, product, and business teams\nIdeal Candidates\nExperience integrating ML into full-stack products (Django/REST APIs, React frontends) or decision-support tools\nExperience operating in compliance-constrained environments\nStrong communicator and cross-functional collaborator\nSelf-starter who thrives in ambiguity and startup-like environments\nJoin Us\n\nIf you're passionate about technology and making an impact, apply today! Protagonist is dedicated to fostering a welcoming and innovative environment where everyone's voice can make a difference.\n\nProtagonist is an Equal Opportunity Employer.\n\nSalary Range: $95,000-$141,000 based on education and level of relevant experience.\n\nPursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.","datePosted":"2026-08-27T09:02:00.530Z","dateModified":"2026-08-27T09:02:00.530Z","hiringOrganization":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Protagonist","sameAs":"https://jobsearcher.com"},"jobLocation":{"@type":"Place","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Washington","addressRegion":"DC","addressCountry":"US"}},"identifier":{"@type":"PropertyValue","name":"JobSearcher","value":"61a3ead434ddfa8a9f747050"},"url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/61a3ead434ddfa8a9f747050"}}