Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Cleo; England; Hybrid; GBP 68,394 - 91,192; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation package

Workplace nursery scheme

Private medical insurance

25 days annual leave

1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years

Job summary

A leading fintech company in the UK is seeking a Machine Learning Engineering Manager to lead a collaborative team focused on deploying ML models to enhance user experience. The ideal candidate has extensive ML experience, is skilled in Python, and has a strong background in team management. This role offers competitive compensation, annual leave, private medical insurance, and a supportive working environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building and deploying Machine Learning models to production.
• Experience managing and developing high performing teams of data scientists and ML engineers.
• Ability to write production quality Python code and willingness to be somewhat hands-on.

Responsibilities

• Understanding core problems faced by the Chat team and coordinating the ML function’s contribution.
• Managing team of ML engineers, coaching and developing them.
• Finding opportunities for model and product improvements in customer datasets.

Skills

Machine Learning model development

Team management

Python programming

NLP domain knowledge

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Python

Job description

Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Cleo

At Cleo, we're not just building another fintech app. We're embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity's relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper‑intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That's the future we're creating.

Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast‑growing unicorn with over $200 million in ARR and growing over 2x year‑over‑year. This isn't just a job; it's a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact.

If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.

Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date with new product features and insights from the team.

About the Role

You’ll join the existing data science function here at Cleo—a thoughtful and collaborative team of ML engineers, analysts, and data engineers. You'll build and deploy production models that developers will feed directly into the product. This position is essential in the expansion of both product and business. We are highly data driven, whether that be understanding natural language, deriving insights from financial data, or determining which financial product is best suited to a user. We have interesting problems to solve on an ever‑increasing scale.

You’ll be working on a hugely impactful workstream, focused on the machine learning that underpins our Chat feature. You’ll be shaping how Cleo uses LLMs to have more engaging, accurate, and personalised conversations about money.

Check out this blog on how data science makes Cleo, Cleo.

What you’ll be doing

• Understanding core problems faced by our Chat team and coordinating the ML function’s contribution to solving them.
• Finding opportunities for model and product improvements in Cleo's extensive datasets of customer behaviour.
• Managing people of the ML engineers in your squads, coaching and developing them to deliver on the roadmap.
• Building out the headcount plan and handling all hiring and team development within your area to support our growth.

About You

• Extensive experience building and deploying Machine Learning models to production.
• Experience managing and developing high performing teams of data scientists and ML engineers.
• Habits of keeping abreast of the latest research and experimenting productively with new technologies, including LLMs and LLM agent design.
• Experience owning an ML roadmap, driving new ideas through to seeing business impact.
• Ability to write production quality Python code and willingness to be somewhat hands‑on.

Nice to haves

• Domain knowledge of NLP, including evaluating LLM systems and fine tuning LLMs or other transformer models.
• Strong ability to communicate findings to non‑technical stakeholders in a concise and engaging manner.
• Experience with containers and container orchestration: Kubernetes, Docker, and/or Mesos.
• Experience using vector databases such as OpenSearch.

Recruitment Process

• Interview with a Recruiter (30 mins)
• Interview with the Hiring Manager (30 mins)
• Technical Interview (30 mins)
• White‑boarding session (60 mins)
• Technical Discussion (45 mins)
• Management Skills Interview (30 mins)

What you get for all your hard work?

• A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with bi‑annual reviews, aligned to our quarterly OKR planning cycles.
• Work at one of the fastest‑growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms, Balderton & EQT Ventures.
• A clear progression plan. We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support.
• Flexibility. We can’t fight for the world’s financial health if we’re not healthy ourselves. We work with everyone to make sure they have the balance they need to do their best work.
• Work where you work best. We’re a globally distributed team. If you live in London we have a hybrid approach, we’d love you to spend one day a week or more in our beautiful office. If you’re outside of London, we’ll encourage you to spend a couple of days with us a few times per year. And we’ll cover your travel costs, naturally.
• Company‑wide performance reviews every 6 months.
• Generous pay increases for high‑performing team members.
• Equity top‑ups for team members getting promoted.
• 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo, up to 30 days).
• 6% employer‑matched pension in the UK.
• Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo.
• Regular socials and activities, online and in‑person.
• We’ll pay for your OpenAI subscription.
• Online mental health support via Spill.
• Workplace Nursery Scheme.
• And many more!

Equal Opportunity

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio‑economic backgrounds.

Seniority level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment type

Full‑time

Job function

Engineering and Information Technology