Director of ML Engineering: Scale, Production, Impact

Axial Search; United States; On-site; USD 240,000 - 400,000; Full time

Job summary

Axial Search is seeking a Director of ML Engineering to own the technical roadmap and architecture for scalable ML systems. You will lead and grow a high-performing ML team, partnering with product, data, and engineering to translate business needs into technical specs and drive end-to-end deployment.

The role requires 7+ years in ML engineering with leadership experience and a strong software engineering foundation to ensure robust, production-grade systems.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on machine learning engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership or senior technical role managing teams or major systems
• Demonstrated ability to take ML models from concept to production, including experience with data pipelines, model training, inference optimization, and monitoring
• Track record of building and scaling high-performing teams, including hiring, mentorship, and developing individual contributors
• Strong foundation in software engineering fundamentals: version control, testing, CI/CD, and architectural thinking applied to ML systems
• Ability to communicate technical complexity to business stakeholders and translate business goals into ML strategy and priorities
• Experience navigating organizational and technical trade-offs, and comfort working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and architecture decisions for machine learning systems, balancing innovation with production stability and scalability
• Lead and grow an ML engineering team, including hiring, mentorship, career development, and fostering a culture of experimentation and rigorous evaluation
• Partner with product, data, and engineering leaders to identify high-impact ML use cases and translate business requirements into technical specifications
• Drive end-to-end delivery of ML models from research and prototyping through production deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement
• Build and maintain infrastructure, tooling, and practices that enable the team to move quickly while maintaining model performance and data governance standards
• Establish evaluation frameworks and metrics that connect model performance to business outcomes
• Represent ML engineering in cross-functional planning, communicating technical constraints, timelines, and opportunities to non-technical stakeholders

Job description

Axial Search is seeking a Director of ML Engineering to own the technical roadmap and architecture for scalable ML systems. You will lead and grow a high-performing ML team, partnering with product, data, and engineering to translate business needs into technical specs and drive end-to-end deployment.

The role requires 7+ years in ML engineering with leadership experience and a strong software engineering foundation to ensure robust, production-grade systems.