Lead Engineer AI/ML - Onsite

Bass Pro Shops; Town of Springfield (WI); On-site; USD 130,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discounts on retail merchandise

401k Retirement Savings

Job summary

Bass Pro Shops is seeking an experienced Machine Learning Engineering professional to design and deploy enterprise AI solutions across retail, operations, and customer experience. You will build scalable ML models, write production-grade Python code, and collaborate with data scientists and MLOps to deploy, monitor, and optimize models in cloud and edge environments.

The role emphasizes production ML systems, model evaluation, responsible AI practices, and robust data handling.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of software/ML engineering experience.
• 5+ years building/training/fine-tuning ML models in business environments.
• Strong Python and ML framework proficiency (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn).
• Experience with production APIs, services, or batch/streaming inference components.
• Familiarity with Git-based workflows, automated testing, and containerization.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and evaluate ML models and inference pipelines for enterprise use cases.
• Build production-quality Python code for model training, evaluation, and inference services.
• Collaborate with Data Scientists to define data, evaluation metrics, and tradeoffs.
• Package, deploy, monitor, and optimize models in cloud/edge/hybrid environments.
• Develop APIs and data interfaces to integrate model outputs into enterprise tools.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

TensorFlow

scikit-learn

APIs

Git

Containerization

ONNX

TensorRT

OpenVINO

Databricks

MLflow

Azure ML

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in CS/AI/ML/related field

Tools

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

ONNX

TensorRT

OpenVINO

MLflow

Azure ML

Databricks

Job description

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Design, develop, and evaluate machine learning models and inference pipelines for enterprise AI use cases across retail, operations, merchandising, customer experience, supply chain, and corporate functions.
• Build production-quality Python code for model training, evaluation, preprocessing, postprocessing, inference services, and reusable model components.
• Partner with Data Scientists to define ground truth datasets, labeling requirements, evaluation metrics, confidence thresholds, and acceptable error tradeoffs.
• Partner with MLOps / Cloud ML Engineering to package, register, deploy, monitor, and optimize models in cloud, edge, or hybrid environments.
• Evaluate and select model architectures, pretrained models, fine-tuning approaches, and inference strategies appropriate for the business problem and operating environment.
• Prepare and transform approved structured and unstructured data for model development while following privacy, retention, and acceptable-use constraints.
• Build or integrate data labeling, sampling, augmentation, and validation workflows needed for model development and evaluation.
• Optimize inference performance for latency, cost, throughput, reliability, and deployment target.
• Implement model output schemas and event metadata structures in partnership with Data Engineering and API/application teams.
• Integrate model outputs with APIs, event streams, dashboards, reports, applications, or other approved enterprise presentation layers.
• Write automated tests for model code, preprocessing logic, inference services, schema contracts, and regression checks.
• Troubleshoot model failures caused by data quality, domain shift, operational changes, drift, or degraded source data.
• Document model assumptions, limitations, dependencies, reproducibility steps, evaluation results, and production readiness criteria.
• Support responsible AI practices, including PII minimization, privacy-aware design, model explainability where practical, and secure handling of approved enterprise data.
• Contribute to architecture decision records, model cards, technical runbooks, documentation, and reusable engineering standards.
• ALL OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED.

EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS:

Minimum Degree Required: Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, applied AI engineering, or production ML systems.
• 5+ years of hands‑on experience building, training, fine‑tuning, or deploying machine learning models in applied business environments.
• Strong proficiency in Python and modern machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit‑learn, OpenCV, or equivalent tools.
• Experience with one or more ML domains such as natural language processing, forecasting, classification, recommendation systems, optimization, anomaly detection, multimodal AI, or generative AI.
• Experience building production‑quality APIs, services, or batch/streaming inference components.
• Experience with Git, automated testing, code review, containerization, and collaborative engineering practices.
• Familiarity with model optimization and deployment formats or tooling such as ONNX, TensorRT, OpenVINO, quantization, batching, or similar techniques preferred.
• Familiarity with Azure Machine Learning, Azure AI services, Databricks, MLflow, or equivalent cloud ML platforms preferred.
• Familiarity with event‑driven architectures, REST APIs, message queues, data lakes, and metadata/event pipelines preferred.
• Experience with distributed inference, real‑time AI systems, high‑throughput event processing, or enterprise integration patterns preferred.
• Experience working with security, privacy, and governance requirements for sensitive operational data preferred.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITY:

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and ability to build maintainable ML systems beyond notebooks.
• Strong understanding of the machine learning lifecycle, including data preparation, training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and retraining.
• Strong understanding of model failure modes in real‑world environments.
• Ability to make practical model tradeoffs across accuracy, latency, cost, privacy, reliability, and maintainability.
• Ability to translate business use cases into technical model requirements without over‑scoping the solution.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with Data Scientists, MLOps Engineers, Data Engineers, platform teams, and business stakeholders.
• Ability to document model behavior and limitations clearly for both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Proficiency with Git‑based development workflows and Agile delivery practices.
• Commitment to responsible and ethical AI development aligned with company standards.

TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS:

Occasional travel, up to 10%, may be required for field observation, technical validation, troubleshooting, or stakeholder workshops.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

Regularly completes computer work and sits.

Occasionally walks and stands.

Seldomly or never lifts up to 50lbs.

INDEPENDENT JUDGEMENT :

Performs duties within scope of general company policies, procedures, and objectives. Analyzes problems and performs needs assessments. Uses judgment in adapting broad guidelines to achieve desired result. Regular exercise of independent judgment within accepted practices. Makes recommendations that affect policies, procedures, and practices.

Full Time Benefits Summary:

Enjoy discounts on retail merchandise, our restaurants, world‑class resorts and conservation attractions!

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Health Savings Account
• Flexible Spending Account
• Voluntary benefits
• 401k Retirement Savings
• Paid holidays
• Paid vacation
• Paid sick time
• Bass Pro Cares Fund
• And more!

Bass Pro Shops is an equal opportunity employer. Hiring decisions are administered without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

Reasonable Accommodations

Qualified individuals with known disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act and certain state or local laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, please visit your nearest location or contact us at [e-mail].

Bass Pro Shops