{"schemaVersion":"jobsearcher.job.v1","id":"7a5554d9eb6ce7cfd9bc4128","url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/7a5554d9eb6ce7cfd9bc4128","canonicalUrl":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/7a5554d9eb6ce7cfd9bc4128","title":"Staff Machine Learning Engineer","description":"Primer exists to make the world a safer place. We do this by providing trusted decision-ready AI to the world's most critical organizations. Our software enables leaders, operators, and analysts to better understand the changing world around us in real time and make informed decisions when the stakes are high. Primer has offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA and Arlington, VA. For more information, please visit https://primer.ai\r\nPrimer exists to make the world a safer place. We build trusted, decision-ready AI for the organizations that can least afford to be wrong: the leaders, operators, and analysts making high-stakes calls about a world that changes faster than anyone can read it. We have offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA, and Arlington, VA. Learn more at primer.ai\r\nThe world produces more information every day than any team can read. We build the AI that turns it into a decision you can trust: fast and grounded enough to stake real consequences on.\r\nAs a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll own AI-driven products end to end, from the prototype that proves an idea works to the production system the mission depends on. You work fluently across the modern stack: large language models, agentic systems, retrieval, embeddings, fine-tuned models, and the evaluation harnesses that catch them when they drift. You can move fast on an open-ended problem and then harden the result into something reliable at scale, drawing on real distributed-systems experience. You’re energized by what frontier models and agents make newly possible. You reach for them reflexively, including to multiply your own output, and you raise the level of everyone around you as you go.\r\nYour technical range matters as much as your judgment about how the pieces fit together. The best work here is designed as part of the whole system, not bolted on beside it, and the engineers with the most impact bring product managers and teammates along with them rather than around them. You’ll partner with product, engineering, and other technical leaders on the hardest version of the problem: putting real AI in the hands of people the moment a decision can’t wait.\r\nRole and Responsibilities - How You Will Make an Impact Set both technical and product direction, making the strategic bets across our LLM, agentic, and NLP systems while shaping how we design AI-driven experiences and set expectations with users.\r\nDesign and build the distributed, agentic systems behind our products at company-wide scale: tool-using conversational agents, multi-turn context, retrieval-grounded reasoning, and the orchestration that ties them together.\r\nTurn massive, messy, real-world data into the trustworthy signal agents' reason over: entity recognition and linking, relation extraction, summarization, semantic search, and knowledge-graph generation.\r\nTake models from checkpoint to production: package, deploy, and operate low-latency, high-concurrency inference (Triton, vLLM, GPU-backed serving) that stays fast and reliable under real load.\r\nBuild the evals and labeled-data flywheels that steer the work rather than gate it, turning “it feels better” into proof you can act on.\r\nPartner with and influence cross-functional teams to shape the technical roadmap, and drive issues to root cause when quality or operations are on the line.\r\nRaise the engineering bar with better patterns, better practices, and a standard other engineers want to match.\r\nRelevant Skills and Experience BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\r\n6+ years building production backend software, with a track record of shipping and operating ML-driven functionality.\r\nMastery of data structures and algorithms, and the judgment to translate user needs into practical solutions.\r\nHands-on depth with LLMs and agentic systems (prompt and context engineering, tool use, retrieval and RAG) and the broader ML toolkit such as PyTorch, plus experience defining evals to measure and improve quality.\r\nFluency authoring production APIs in Python (Rust a plus).\r\nHigh agency and a bias to action in ambiguous, fast-moving problems, plus the curiosity, generosity, and love of teaching that lifts a whole team.\r\nBonus Points Experience with knowledge graphs, information retrieval at scale, or LLM fine-tuning and post-training.\r\nA pull toward high-stakes, real-world problems where the work actually ships and someone depends on the answer.\r\nPrimer works closely with the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Any offer of employment is conditioned on an applicant or employee being able to meet any applicable government contract requirements. The company may rescind any offer of employment to an applicant or terminate an employee if the applicant or employee is unable to perform the functions of the position in compliance with applicable government contracts or if an applicant or employee makes a false attestation of compliance.\r\nWhat We Offer\r\nWe are a series D funded company with investors from Addition, USIT, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Addition Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and others. We are intentional around building a diverse and inclusive team of subject matter experts to better advocate for the needs of our users.\r\nWe care a lot about our work and about the well being of our team. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy for team members to utilize, Wellness Days and 100% paid leave for parents of growing families.\r\nFull medical, dental, and vision coverage\r\nFertility benefits through Carrot\r\nMental health coverage on demand with Headspace Care+\r\nGympass+ Membership via Wellhub\r\nOne Medical Membership\r\n401(k)\r\nRemote work stipends\r\nMonthly internet allowance\r\nPrimer is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and affirmative action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Please see the United States Department of Labor's EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.\r\nIf you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at info@primer.com.\r\nPursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.#J-18808-Ljbffr","company":"Primer","rawCompany":"primer","city":"Pasadena","state":"CA","isRemote":false,"isActive":false,"createdAt":"2026-08-21T01:17:28.987Z","occupations":[{"code":"15-1252.00","title":"Software Developers","slug":"software-developers"},{"code":"15-1221.00","title":"Computer and Information Research Scientists","slug":"computer-and-information-research-scientists"},{"code":"15-2051.00","title":"Data Scientists","slug":"data-scientists"}],"industries":[{"code":"513210","title":"Software Publishers","slug":"software-publishers"},{"code":"541511","title":"Custom Computer Programming Services","slug":"custom-computer-programming-services"},{"code":"541512","title":"Computer Systems Design Services","slug":"computer-systems-design-services"}],"jobPosting":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"JobPosting","title":"Staff Machine Learning Engineer","description":"Primer exists to make the world a safer place. We do this by providing trusted decision-ready AI to the world's most critical organizations. Our software enables leaders, operators, and analysts to better understand the changing world around us in real time and make informed decisions when the stakes are high. Primer has offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA and Arlington, VA. For more information, please visit https://primer.ai\r\nPrimer exists to make the world a safer place. We build trusted, decision-ready AI for the organizations that can least afford to be wrong: the leaders, operators, and analysts making high-stakes calls about a world that changes faster than anyone can read it. We have offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA, and Arlington, VA. Learn more at primer.ai\r\nThe world produces more information every day than any team can read. We build the AI that turns it into a decision you can trust: fast and grounded enough to stake real consequences on.\r\nAs a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll own AI-driven products end to end, from the prototype that proves an idea works to the production system the mission depends on. You work fluently across the modern stack: large language models, agentic systems, retrieval, embeddings, fine-tuned models, and the evaluation harnesses that catch them when they drift. You can move fast on an open-ended problem and then harden the result into something reliable at scale, drawing on real distributed-systems experience. You’re energized by what frontier models and agents make newly possible. You reach for them reflexively, including to multiply your own output, and you raise the level of everyone around you as you go.\r\nYour technical range matters as much as your judgment about how the pieces fit together. The best work here is designed as part of the whole system, not bolted on beside it, and the engineers with the most impact bring product managers and teammates along with them rather than around them. You’ll partner with product, engineering, and other technical leaders on the hardest version of the problem: putting real AI in the hands of people the moment a decision can’t wait.\r\nRole and Responsibilities - How You Will Make an Impact Set both technical and product direction, making the strategic bets across our LLM, agentic, and NLP systems while shaping how we design AI-driven experiences and set expectations with users.\r\nDesign and build the distributed, agentic systems behind our products at company-wide scale: tool-using conversational agents, multi-turn context, retrieval-grounded reasoning, and the orchestration that ties them together.\r\nTurn massive, messy, real-world data into the trustworthy signal agents' reason over: entity recognition and linking, relation extraction, summarization, semantic search, and knowledge-graph generation.\r\nTake models from checkpoint to production: package, deploy, and operate low-latency, high-concurrency inference (Triton, vLLM, GPU-backed serving) that stays fast and reliable under real load.\r\nBuild the evals and labeled-data flywheels that steer the work rather than gate it, turning “it feels better” into proof you can act on.\r\nPartner with and influence cross-functional teams to shape the technical roadmap, and drive issues to root cause when quality or operations are on the line.\r\nRaise the engineering bar with better patterns, better practices, and a standard other engineers want to match.\r\nRelevant Skills and Experience BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\r\n6+ years building production backend software, with a track record of shipping and operating ML-driven functionality.\r\nMastery of data structures and algorithms, and the judgment to translate user needs into practical solutions.\r\nHands-on depth with LLMs and agentic systems (prompt and context engineering, tool use, retrieval and RAG) and the broader ML toolkit such as PyTorch, plus experience defining evals to measure and improve quality.\r\nFluency authoring production APIs in Python (Rust a plus).\r\nHigh agency and a bias to action in ambiguous, fast-moving problems, plus the curiosity, generosity, and love of teaching that lifts a whole team.\r\nBonus Points Experience with knowledge graphs, information retrieval at scale, or LLM fine-tuning and post-training.\r\nA pull toward high-stakes, real-world problems where the work actually ships and someone depends on the answer.\r\nPrimer works closely with the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Any offer of employment is conditioned on an applicant or employee being able to meet any applicable government contract requirements. The company may rescind any offer of employment to an applicant or terminate an employee if the applicant or employee is unable to perform the functions of the position in compliance with applicable government contracts or if an applicant or employee makes a false attestation of compliance.\r\nWhat We Offer\r\nWe are a series D funded company with investors from Addition, USIT, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Addition Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and others. We are intentional around building a diverse and inclusive team of subject matter experts to better advocate for the needs of our users.\r\nWe care a lot about our work and about the well being of our team. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy for team members to utilize, Wellness Days and 100% paid leave for parents of growing families.\r\nFull medical, dental, and vision coverage\r\nFertility benefits through Carrot\r\nMental health coverage on demand with Headspace Care+\r\nGympass+ Membership via Wellhub\r\nOne Medical Membership\r\n401(k)\r\nRemote work stipends\r\nMonthly internet allowance\r\nPrimer is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and affirmative action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Please see the United States Department of Labor's EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.\r\nIf you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at info@primer.com.\r\nPursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.#J-18808-Ljbffr","datePosted":"2026-08-21T01:17:28.987Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T01:17:28.987Z","hiringOrganization":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Primer","sameAs":"https://jobsearcher.com"},"jobLocation":{"@type":"Place","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Pasadena","addressRegion":"CA","addressCountry":"US"}},"identifier":{"@type":"PropertyValue","name":"JobSearcher","value":"7a5554d9eb6ce7cfd9bc4128"},"url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/7a5554d9eb6ce7cfd9bc4128"}}