Director, Machine Learning

Envoy Global, Inc.; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 245,000; Full time

Job summary

Envoy Global, Inc. is seeking a Director of Machine Learning to build and lead the ML organization behind our immigration case-management platform. You will hire and structure teams, set technical direction, and own the cost, quality and throughput of models in production.

You will guide document AI, extraction and agentic systems across petitions, evidence and case data, while balancing build-vs-buy decisions and vendor tools. This is a remote role within the United States.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in applied ML/AI with leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the ML engineering organization with a tech-lead layer.
• Mature the org to production-grade delivery with governance and testing.
• Mentor senior ML engineers and data scientists; communicate with execs.
• Own technical strategy for document AI, extraction, and agentic systems across immigration documents.
• Lead build-vs-buy evaluations for ML capabilities; balance cost and accuracy.
• Design retrieval and context-optimization strategies to control LLM costs while maintaining accuracy.
• Define ML systems architecture in collaboration with platform/product teams.
• Report on ML org health, delivery, and cost/quality metrics.

Skills

Applied ML/AI leadership

NLP / document understanding

LLM / agentic systems

Build-vs-buy strategy

Executive communication

Patents/publications

Production ML pipelines

Team leadership

Education

MS/PhD in CS/ML or related

Tools

LLM platforms

RAG / context optimization

NER / document extraction

Job description

Envoy Global is a proven innovator in the global immigration space. Our mission combines our industry-leading tech platform with holistic service to streamline, simplify and expedite the immigration process for employers and individuals.

Envoy Global is looking for a Director, Machine Learning to build and lead the AI/ML organization behind our immigration case management platform – including document understanding, extraction, and agentic automation across visa petitions, supporting evidence, and case correspondence. You'll grow and manage a team of ML engineers, set technical direction on build-vs-buy for AI/ML capabilities, and be accountable for the cost, quality, and throughput of every model in production. You bring not just delivery experience but recognized depth in the field – patents, publications, or equivalent proven credentials that show you can push the state of the art, not just apply it.

As our Director, Machine Learning, you will be required to:

• Build and scale the ML engineering organization – hiring, structuring pods, and establishing a tech-lead layer so the team can own day-to-day technical decisions as it grows.
• Mature the org from ad-hoc experimentation to production-grade delivery through roadmap governance, automated testing, on-call ownership, and clear escalation/triage paths for model and pipeline issues.
• Manage, mentor, and grow senior ML engineers and data scientists, and represent the ML org to executive and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Own the technical strategy for document AI, extraction, and agentic systems applied to immigration case documents – petitions, supporting evidence, correspondence, and case data.
• Lead structured build-vs-buy evaluations for ML capabilities and vendor tools – in-house models and pipelines versus external vendors or managed services – balancing cost, accuracy, latency, and compliance.
• Design and own retrieval and context-optimization strategies (RAG, page/section narrowing, agentic cross-validation) that control LLM inference cost at scale without sacrificing accuracy.
• Define and own the ML systems architecture – model serving, evaluation pipelines, feature/data infrastructure – in partnership with platform and product architects.

Delivery & Operational Impact

• Be accountable for measurable business outcomes: cost savings from displacing manual review or external vendors, throughput scaling of document/extraction pipelines, and accuracy/quality gains on case-critical data.
• Establish LLM evaluation frameworks and quality bars before models ship to production, and drive continuous model and pipeline cost optimization.
• Partner with Product, Legal Operations, and Case Management leadership to translate immigration workflow requirements into ML-backed product capabilities.
• Report on ML org health, delivery, and cost/quality metrics to engineering and executive leadership.

To apply for this role, you should possess the following skills, experience and qualifications:

• 8+ years in applied ML/AI, including several years leading or managing an ML/AI engineering team, ideally in document understanding, NLP, or search.
• Proven credentials that demonstrate depth beyond applied delivery – issued patents, peer-reviewed publications or conference talks, or equivalent recognized contributions to the ML/AI field.
• Track record scaling an ML/AI organization and shipping production LLM, NLP, or document-extraction systems at volume, with clear ownership of cost and quality outcomes.
• Hands-on depth in LLM and agentic systems (RAG, context optimization, evaluation), NER/document extraction, and traditional ML (search/ranking, classification) – comfortable going deep with the team, not just directing from above.
• Experience making and defending build-vs-buy calls for ML capabilities, and partnering with architects on platform-level ML infrastructure decisions.
• Experience in healthcare, legal, financial services, or other regulated/compliance-sensitive domains handling sensitive documents is a strong plus.
• Excellent executive communication skills; able to translate technical trade-offs into business terms for non-technical stakeholders.
• M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field preferred.

Annual Salary Range: $200,000-$245,000

This position is 100% remote, working from home, within the United States.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Envoy Global, Inc.’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.