AI/ML Engineer, Lead

Sandbar; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, vision, and dental benefits

Company-sponsored 401(k)

Unlimited PTO and sick time

Early stage equity

Job summary

Sandbar in New York City is seeking a Lead ML Engineer to architect and deploy a new conversational interface named Stream. This role involves leading the strategy for ML-based products, optimizing models for user interactions, and closely collaborating with a multidisciplinary team.

The ideal candidate will have over 6 years of machine learning experience, a passion for human-computer interaction, and a proven track record in delivering ML products. Benefits include health, vision, and dental coverage, along with unlimited PTO and company-sponsored 401(k).

Qualifications

• 6+ years in machine learning experience.
• Experience shipping ML-based products.
• Experience in large-language model evaluation and post-training.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, strategy, and tradeoffs for our ML-based products.
• Design and improve user-facing model-based experiences.
• Develop infrastructure to deploy models efficiently.
• Optimize inference pipelines for performance.
• Collaborate with ML/AI engineers and designers on products.

Skills

Machine learning experience

Production-grade software writing

Human-computer interaction passion

Large-language model evaluation

Audio/voice ML

Job description

About Sandbar

Sandbar is an interface company in New York City. We aim to augment individuals so we can each think, act, and move more freely. Our team has built SW, ML, and HW products across Meta, CTRL-labs, Google, Apple, Fitbit, Peloton, and Equinox.

Our first product, Stream, is a self extension—a private voice ring and conversational interface. Stream has been featured in WSJ, Bloomberg, & Wired, and begins shipping in Summer '26.

Join us in creating technology that extends human thinking.

About

We’re looking for a Lead ML Engineer to build Stream, a new conversational interface. As an ML Lead, you will architect, build, and deploy a new interface which spans agentic control, multimodal interactions, and information retrieval. This role is perfect for someone who cares deeply about real-world ML deployment and human-in-the-loop agentic interactions.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, strategy, and tradeoffs for our ML-based products

• Design and improve user-facing model-based experiences, including agentic control, conversational interactions, and information retrieval.

• Develop infrastructure to rapidly develop, evaluate, and deploy models

• Optimize inference pipelines for latency, reliability, and concurrency

• Work closely with other ML/AI engineers, infrastructure engineers, designers, and cofounders on existing and future products

Qualifications

• 6+ years in machine learning experience

• Experience shipping ML-based products is required

• Experience in large-language model evaluation and post-training is required

• Experience in audio / voice ML is a plus

• Comfortable writing production-grade software

• Passion for human-computer interaction

• Experience setting technical direction and driving execution with multidisciplinary teams

FTE Benefits

• Health, vision, and dental benefits

• Company-sponsored 401(k)

• Unlimited PTO and sick time

• Early stage equity