Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Atlassian; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

At Atlassian, a Senior Machine Learning Engineer is sought to join the AI Context team, helping to design, build, and operate agentic LLM harness solutions across product features. The role is based in Sydney, NSW, with flexible work options including hybrid work.

You will work with a team of SWEs and MLEs across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and the US West Coast, shaping the long-term direction of LLM harness engineering while coaching junior engineers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, preferably in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 4+ years of industry experience in machine learning, including hands-on experience designing, evaluating, and operating LLM-based or agentic systems
• Strong coding skills in Kotlin and/or Python, with production-quality code and AI-assisted software development practices
• Experience building and operating machine learning systems in production, including operational practices to improve quality, reliability and cost
• Experience building datasets, evaluations, and benchmarks for systems at scale; familiarity with SQL, distributed data processing and cloud data environments
• A strong ownership mindset and a track record of driving ambiguous technical outcomes from problem definition through delivery and operation
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain ML concepts to diverse audiences and steer technical direction with cross-functional stakeholders
• Experience leading technical work and coaching engineers in a collaborative team or virtual squad
• A pragmatic, iterative approach that balances a high bar for quality with the value of delivering, learning, and improving

Responsibilities

• Design, build, ship, and operate agentic LLM harness solutions for existing and new AI features
• Improve quality and reduce cost across production LLM systems, build robust evaluation capabilities
• Contribute to fine-tuning and model serving
• Set long-term technical direction for LLM harness engineering and incorporate rapid advances from research
• Navigate complex systems, propose and execute end-to-end improvements
• Act as thought partner to Engineering Managers and Heads of Engineering, lead small virtual squads
• Coach junior engineers and help the team achieve key results

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kotlin

Python

SQL

Job description

Atlassians can choose where they work—whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two. That way, Atlassians have more control over supporting their family, personal goals, and other priorities. We can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity.

Responsibilities

Atlassian is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join AI Context team within broader Rovo + AI organisation. You will help build the agentic LLM harnesses that power high-visibility Rovo AI features and enable contextually aware, intelligent experiences for every user and agent.

Your future team

You will join AI Context, a team of software and machine learning engineers working across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and the US West Coast. The team has a mix of SWEs and MLEs and partners closely across Rovo + AI and product teams.

We build experiences around insights, modelling, and personalisation that help Atlassian products deliver relevant context to users and AI agents. We give engineers a high degree of ownership and autonomy, protect focus time through asynchronous collaboration, and use lightweight, ad hoc alignment when needed.

What you’ll do

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will design, build, ship, and operate agentic LLM harness solutions for existing and new AI features. You will improve quality and reduce cost across production LLM systems, build robust evaluation capabilities, and contribute to areas such as fine-tuning and model serving.

You will help set the long-term technical direction for LLM harness engineering, incorporating rapid advances from the research community and industry. You will navigate complex systems, identify practical paths from current constraints to a durable architecture, and propose and execute improvements end to end.

You will act as a thought partner to Engineering Managers and Heads of Engineering, influence technical direction across stakeholder teams, and lead small virtual squads that own critical components. You will also coach junior engineers and help the team achieve its key results.

Qualifications

Your background

On the first day, we’ll expect you to have

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, preferably in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

• 4+ years of related industry experience in machine learning, including hands-on experience designing, evaluating, and operating LLM-based or agentic systems

• Strong coding skills in Kotlin and/or Python, with the ability to write performant, production-quality code and work effectively with AI-assisted software development practices

• Experience building and operating machine learning systems in production, including the operational practices required to improve system quality, reliability, and cost

• Experience building datasets, evaluations, and benchmarks for systems operating at scale; familiarity with SQL, distributed data processing, and cloud data environments

• A strong ownership mindset and a track record of driving ambiguous technical outcomes from problem definition through delivery and operation

• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain ML concepts to diverse audiences and steer technical direction with cross-functional stakeholders

• Experience leading technical work and coaching engineers in a collaborative team or virtual squad

• A pragmatic, iterative approach that balances a high bar for quality with the value of delivering, learning, and improving

It’s great, but not required, if you have

• Experience fine-tuning smaller language models

• Experience serving and operating LLMs using technologies such as NVIDIA Triton Inference Server

• Experience applying machine learning to personalisation or context-aware product experiences

• Experience solving complex problems in enterprise SaaS or similarly large-scale product environments

Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more. To learn more, visit go.atlassian.com/perksandbenefits.

About Atlassian

At Atlassian, we’re motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together.

We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.

To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh.

In line with local law, identity verification (which may include use of biometric data) is a condition of employment with Atlassian for employment fraud purposes.

Senior Machine Learning Engineer • Sydney, NSW, AU