Principal Architect

Sony; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company is looking for a Senior ML/AI Engineer to lead ML projects, focusing on building large-scale automation with a strong backend engineering emphasis. The ideal candidate should have a Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 6 years' experience in machine learning and cloud infrastructure. Proficiency in Java and Python, along with skills in AWS services, are essential. The role demands responsibility for automated workflows and microservices deployments, ensuring high service availability and cost-efficient operations.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in machine learning, backend engineering, or AI platform development.
• Demonstrated experience with Java and Python.
• Proficiency with common AWS services like Lambda, DynamoDB.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, test, and monitor AWS-based workflows.
• Develop microservices for ML-driven applications.
• Guarantee high levels of service availability through on-call rotation.

Skills

Java

Python

MLOps tooling (Kubernetes, Docker, MLflow, Airflow)

Cloud services (AWS, EKS/ECS, Lambda)

Systems monitoring (Datadog, Splunk)

Distributed systems

Communication skills

LLM expertise

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

AWS

Terraform

Kafka

Flint

Spark

dbt

Job description

Position

We are seeking a Senior ML/AI Engineer to lead the design, optimization, and deployment of large-scale automation efforts, utilizing LLMs and generative AI as appropriate. This role sits at the intersection of machine learning, backend engineering, and cloud-scale infrastructure, focusing on building intelligent systems that power our teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Automate Workflows: Architect, build, test, and monitor AWS-based workflows to solve critical business problems.
• Microservices and APIs: Develop microservices for ML-driven applications using Python or Java, ensuring scalability and resilience.
• Service Availability: Guarantee high levels of service availability through participation in an on-call rotation, following best practices for disaster recovery and business continuity.
• Automated Deployment: Ensure all work is deployed in an automated, repeatable fashion, optimizing infrastructure for cost and efficiency.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 6+ years of experience in machine learning, backend engineering, or AI platform development.
• Coding proficiency: demonstrated experience with Java and Python.
• Cloud competency: proficiency with common AWS services or equivalent such as EKS/ECS, Kinesis, Lambda, DynamoDB, SNS, and SQS.
• Systems monitoring and analytics: knowledge of systems monitoring, alerting, and analytics using tools such as Datadog, Splunk, New Relic, or AWS CloudTrail.
• Communication skills: demonstrated success in cross-functional collaboration.
• LLM expertise: proven experience developing, evaluating and orchestrating agentic workflows.
• MLOps and distributed systems: hands-on experience with distributed systems and MLOps tooling such as Kubernetes, Docker, MLflow, Airflow, Terraform, and CI/CD.

Preferred Skills

• Data streaming and orchestration: familiarity with tools such as Kafka, Flink, Spark, dbt, and Airflow.
• Multi-modal LLM systems: experience with multi-modal LLM systems (text + image embeddings).
• AI observability and evaluation: exposure to AI observability, prompt evaluation frameworks, and safety alignment tools.
• Vector database knowledge: understanding of vector databases and retrieval workflows.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, legally protected physical or mental disability, covered veteran status, status in the U.S. uniformed services, sexual orientation, marital status, genetic information or membership in any other legally protected category.