Lead AI/ML Engineer New

Arkestro, Inc; United States; Remote; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Startup equity

Health benefits

Remote-first team

Learning budget

Team retreats

Job summary

Arkestro, Inc. is seeking a Lead AI/ML Engineer to own significant pieces of AI-powered functionality in production. This startup-scale role spans idea to production, with breadth across architecture and collaboration with the ML team.

You will design, build, and productionize ML features, embed AI into Arkestro's product, and mentor other engineers while championing safety, reliability, and responsible-AI practices.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in data science, ML engineering, or related field with production ML delivery.
• Strong Python software engineering skills.
• Hands-on experience shipping ML models in production.
• Experience building evaluation data sets for ML/LLM systems.
• Familiar with MLOps and CI/CD practices.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS) and data warehousing like Snowflake.
• Experience leading technical work with limited oversight.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and productionize ML functionality.
• Partner with product squads to embed AI features into the product.
• Contribute to AI/ML architecture decisions and stack.
• Own data pipelines and eval systems for models.
• Ensure production reliability, latency, and cost considerations.

Skills

Python

Production ML

ML model deployment

Problem solving

Stakeholder comms

Tools

dbt

Docker

Kubernetes

Snowflake

Job description

Arkestro'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

$160,000 - $190,000 USD

Arkestro is committed to providing our employees with a benefits package designed to give you the flexibility you need to ensure a healthy life/work balance. Arkestro offers our employees great benefits and perks, including, but not limited to:

• 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

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.

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 Arkestro'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.