Lead AI/ML Engineer

Arkestro, Inc; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and startup equity

Medical, Dental, Vision insurance-prem

401K discretionary employer matching

Unlimited PTO

Remote-first team with in-person team"

Annual learning budget

Job summary

Arkestro, Inc in Oregon is seeking a Lead AI/ML Engineer to own significant AI/ML capabilities from idea to production. This startup-scale role spans architecture, implementation, and reliability, and you’ll collaborate with the Data and Product Engineering teams to ship production AI features.

You will design and productionize ML/agentic functionality, build evaluation data, and mentor engineers while promoting safe, scalable systems.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in data science, machine learning engineering, or a related quantitative/engineering field, including hands-on production ML or AI system delivery.
• Strong software engineering skills, particularly in Python
• Direct experience building & shipping ML models or AI/agentic functionality in production
• Experience building/curating evaluation sets/ground truth for ML or LLM-based systems
• Experience with MLOps tools and practices for production ML/AI systems
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (preferably AWS) and data warehousing (e.g. Snowflake)
• Understanding of machine learning concepts and their practical, production application
• Experience with version control and CI/CD practices
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical work with limited oversight and to influence technical direction without formal authority
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and productionize machine learning and agentic AI functionality yourself
• Partner with product engineering squads to embed AI and agentic capabilities directly into Arkestro's product.
• Contribute to architecture decisions for how Arkestro builds AI products and systems, including our still-evolving AI/ML stack.
• Contribute to dbt and data pipeline work when it's needed for the systems you build
• Own evals and ground truth for the projects you lead, in partnership with PMs and stakeholders. Work with our existing ML engineer to build and curate the human-generated evals that feed our in-house automated eval system.
• Build and maintain the tooling that gets AI/ML systems into production reliably, treating latency, cost, and error handling as first-class concerns.
• Champion safety, reliability, and responsible-AI practices in the systems you build: flag risk, build in guardrails, and help define what "production-ready" means for AI features at Arkestro.
• Act as a go-to resource for other engineers on AI/ML best practices.
• Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Occasionally engage directly with customers or customer-facing teams to explain how AI-driven functionality works

Skills

Python

Machine learning

MLOps

CI/CD

Cloud AWS

Snowflake

Ground truth evaluation

Production ML

Version control

Data science

Evaluation sets

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

dbt

Git

Job description

About ArkestroArkestro's Predictive Procurement Platform applies AI, game theory, and behavioral science to enterprise negotiations. It moves teams away from reactive supplier bidding toward data-driven offers that reduce friction and help both buyers and suppliers reach better outcomes faster. Arkestro helps procurement teams influence more enterprise spend and uncover savings that traditional sourcing approaches often leave behind by applying predictive intelligence to how sourcing events are designed and executed. We're a hyper-growth company looking for people who take ownership and are comfortable working through complexity. This is a tremendous opportunity if you want to do meaningful work and help shape how large enterprises run procurement... Arkestro is a place where you can have a big impact. See Arkestro in action at arkestro.com.

About this Role

As a Lead AI/ML Engineer, you'll own significant pieces of how Arkestro builds, ships, and operates AI-powered functionality in production. This is a startup-scale role: you'll work across more of the path from idea to production than a comparable role would at a larger company, and you should be energized by that breadth rather than looking to specialize narrowly. You'll be a driving voice in shaping our AI/ML architecture, working closely with our existing ML engineer and the broader Data and Product Engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and productionize machine learning and agentic AI functionality yourself
• Partner with product engineering squads to embed AI and agentic capabilities directly into Arkestro's product.
• Contribute to architecture decisions for how Arkestro builds AI products and systems, including our still-evolving AI/ML stack.
• Contribute to dbt and data pipeline work when it's needed for the systems you build
• Own evals and ground truth for the projects you lead, in partnership with PMs and stakeholders. Work with our existing ML engineer to build and curate the human-generated evals that feed our in-house automated eval system.
• Build and maintain the tooling that gets AI/ML systems into production reliably, treating latency, cost, and error handling as first-class concerns.
• Champion safety, reliability, and responsible-AI practices in the systems you build: flag risk, build in guardrails, and help define what "production-ready" means for AI features at Arkestro.
• Act as a go-to resource for other engineers on AI/ML best practices.
• Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Occasionally engage directly with customers or customer-facing teams to explain how AI-driven functionality works

Necessary Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in data science, machine learning engineering, or a related quantitative/engineering field, including hands-on production ML or AI system delivery
• Strong software engineering skills, particularly in Python
• Direct experience building & shipping ML models or AI/agentic functionality in production
• Experience building/curating evaluation sets/ground truth for ML or LLM-based systems
• Experience with MLOps tools and practices for production ML/AI systems
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (preferably AWS) and data warehousing (e.g. Snowflake)
• Understanding of machine learning concepts and their practical, production application
• Experience with version control and CI/CD practices
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical work with limited oversight and to influence technical direction without formal authority
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills

Ideal Qualifications

• Experience embedding LLM-based or agentic features into a production product
• Experience with dbt for data transformations
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience mentoring other engineers or acting as a technical go-to person on a team
• Knowledge of procurement and/or supply chain data models
• Prior experience in enterprise software and startups

If you're passionate about turning innovative ideas into scalable solutions and want to make a significant impact in the procurement space, we'd love to hear from you. Join us in revolutionizing how companies manage their spend and supply chains!

Pay Range

Pay Range$160,000—$200,000 USD

Benefits and Perks

• Competitive salary and startup equity
• Medical, Dental, Vision insurance premiums covered up to 100% (employee only)
• 401K discretionary employer matching
• Unlimited PTO
• A remote-first team with regular opportunities to get together in person for team building, design sprints, and customer visits
• Annual budget of $1,000 for learning and professional development
• Diverse, inclusive, highly collaborative, and vibrant culture

Equal Opportunity Statement

Arkestro is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.

Disclaimer

Please note this job description may not be inclusive of all assigned duties, responsibilities, or aspects of the job described and that additional tasks may be assigned to the employee from time to time; or the scope of the job may change as necessitated by business demands. Arkestro reserves the right to change duties, responsibilities and activities at any time with or without notice.