Autonomous Mineral Refining ML Engineer

marianaminerals; Ann Arbor (MI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Mariana Minerals is building the critical minerals supply chain from the ground up and seeks a Machine Learning Engineer to help make it autonomous as part of a mining company that designs and operates its own processes. You will work on real plant data and simulators to optimize lithium recovery, energy use, and uptime.

You will collaborate with process and chemistry experts, develop RL-driven control models, and ship implementation-ready code that affects live facilities in Michigan.

Qualifications

• 2-8+ years of experience in machine learning, reinforcement learning, or scientific computing.
• Solid grounding in machine learning fundamentals, with working knowledge of modern deep learning; exposure to reinforcement learning is a strong plus.
• Proficiency in Python and comfort reading and debugging an existing codebase.
• Curiosity about physical, industrial systems and eagerness to learn chemistry and process engineering from experts who will challenge your assumptions.
• A self-starter who asks good questions, ships, and escalates blockers early.

Responsibilities

• Run reinforcement learning experiments in physically realistic simulators of mineral processing operations and help turn results into better controllers.
• Build and refine training environments—reward functions, observations, and action logic—with guidance from senior engineers.
• Train control models, track and interpret performance, and diagnose underperformance.
• Close the gap between simulation and reality by comparing model behavior against real plant data and flag where physics diverges.
• Write clean, well-tested code and contribute to services that put models into production.
• Partner with process and chemistry experts to understand the unit operations being modeled.

Skills

Machine Learning

Reinforcement Learning

Python

Scientific computing

Job description

Mariana Minerals is building the critical minerals supply chain from the ground up and seeks a Machine Learning Engineer to help make it autonomous as part of a mining company that designs and operates its own processes. You will work on real plant data and simulators to optimize lithium recovery, energy use, and uptime.

You will collaborate with process and chemistry experts, develop RL-driven control models, and ship implementation-ready code that affects live facilities in Michigan.