Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Alignerr Corp.; Auckland; Remote; NZD 147,000 - 295,000; Full time

Job summary

Alignerr is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to craft high-fidelity reasoning traces that teach how to plan, reason, and decide for advanced AI systems. This remote hourly contract role suits senior professionals who enjoy tackling hard problems and want meaningful, lasting impact on AI development.

You will author structured reasoning traces, document step-by-step strategies, and help guide data strategies for robust model decision-making.

Qualifications

• Deep experience in machine learning and AI research.
• Ability to decompose complex problems into clear, logical steps.
• Experience with LLM evaluation, fine-tuning, or training.
• Comfort with architectural and implementation-level thinking.
• Rigorous focus on correctness, precision, and documentation.
• Ability to work independently and asynchronously.

Responsibilities

• Author high-fidelity reasoning traces for ML tasks.
• Design step-by-step problem-solving strategies for LLMs.
• Review traces for clarity, depth, and training usefulness.
• Apply architectural insight to improve model reasoning.
• Contribute to data strategies for edge-case model decisions.

Skills

ML research

Problem decomposition

LLM evaluation

Architectural thinking

Documentation quality

Independent work

Job description

Senior Machine Learning Engineer (AI Data Trainer)

About The Role: What if your deep expertise in machine learning could directly shape how the world's most advanced AI systems think, plan, and make decisions?

We're looking for Senior Machine Learning Engineers to work on one of the most intellectually challenging problems in AI right now: teaching large language models how to reason. You'll author high-fidelity reasoning traces — structured, step-by-step records of how an expert approaches and solves complex technical problems — that become the training signal for next-generation AI. This is a fully remote, flexible contract role designed for senior technical professionals who thrive on hard problems and want their work to have real, lasting impact on the trajectory of AI.

• Organization: Alignerr
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 10-40 hours/week

What You'll Do

• Author complex, high-fidelity reasoning traces for sophisticated ML and technical tasks — capturing planning, tool use, and decision-making in structured formats
• Design and document step-by-step problem-solving strategies that train LLMs to navigate real-world scenarios reliably
• Review and quality-check traces to ensure they meet rigorous standards for logical clarity, depth, and usefulness as training data
• Apply senior-level architectural insight to help AI models develop more robust, reliable reasoning capabilities
• Contribute to data strategies that address the hardest edge cases in model decision-making

Who You Are

• Deep experience in machine learning, AI research, or a closely related technical field — with a strong focus on model reasoning and behavior
• Proven ability to decompose complex, ambiguous problems into clear, logical, and well-documented steps
• Experienced with LLM evaluation, fine-tuning, or training methodologies
• Comfortable thinking at both the architectural and implementation level
• Naturally rigorous — you care deeply about correctness, precision, and documentation quality
• Able to work independently and asynchronously with a high degree of self-direction

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with data annotation, data quality frameworks, or AI evaluation systems
• Top-tier Kaggle competition results (Grandmaster or Master level) — a strong signal of elite model intuition and feature engineering skill
• Background in AI safety, RLHF, or human feedback pipelines
• Experience writing technical documentation or structured analysis at a high level

Why Join Us

• Work directly on the frontier — your contributions will shape how leading AI models reason and act
• Collaborate with world-class AI research teams and labs on cutting-edge projects
• Fully remote and asynchronous — work when and where you're most effective
• Freelance autonomy with meaningful, intellectually stimulating work
• Exposure to advanced LLM training methodologies you won't find anywhere else
• Potential for ongoing contract extensions as new projects launch