Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Atlassian; Sydney; Remote; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

At Atlassian, a Senior Machine Learning Engineer is sought to join the AI Context team. You will design, build, and operate agentic LLM harness solutions powering high-visibility AI features across Atlassian products.

You will collaborate with SWEs, ML engineers, and product teams across Sydney and beyond, shaping the long-term technical direction while delivering robust, scalable ML systems with ownership and high quality.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 4+ years of ML industry experience, including LLM-based or agentic systems.
• Strong Kotlin and/or Python coding for production-grade code.
• Experience building and operating ML systems in production with reliability and cost focus.
• Experience building datasets, evaluations, and benchmarks at scale (SQL, distributed data, cloud).
• Ownership mindset and ability to drive ambiguous technical outcomes from problem to delivery.
• Strong communication and influencing skills for cross-functional stakeholders.
• Experience leading technical work and coaching engineers in a team or virtual squad.
• Pragmatic, iterative approach balancing quality with delivery and learning.

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 evaluation capabilities and contribute to fine-tuning and model serving.
• Set long-term technical direction for LLM harness engineering; navigate complex systems and architect durable paths.
• Act as thought partner to Engineering Managers and Heads of Engineering; influence direction and lead small virtual squads.
• Coach junior engineers and help the team achieve key results.

Skills

Kotlin

Python

ML engineering

Data engineering

Communication

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's/Master's in CS or related field

Tools

NVIDIA Triton Inference Server

SQL

Distributed data processing

Cloud data environments

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.

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.

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 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.