Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Agentic AI

Zillow; United States; Remote; USD 199,000 - 318,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company is seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to innovate in multimodal AI technologies. The role involves prototyping ideas, collaborating with partners, and deploying models on scalable platforms. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in AI and strong engineering skills.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical coverage

Dental and vision coverage

Parental leave

Retirement contributions

Paid time off

Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on work building high-impact AI solutions.
• Experience in shipping user-friendly voice-based conversational systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop innovative multimodal Agentic AI technologies.
• Mentor engineers and cultivate a culture of innovation.

Skills

Natural Language Processing

Reinforcement Learning

Deep Reasoning

AI Planning

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

AgengSDK

LangChain

LangGraph

Job description

About the team

The Agentic AI team at Zillow is at the forefront of transforming the real estate industry by helping millions of people use advanced AI technologies to find their next home. We aim to redefine the home shopping and transaction experience by providing a proactive, always-on assistant with cutting-edge speech recognition, natural language understanding, and dynamic dialogue orchestration. By embedding domain knowledge and specialized expertise in these assistants, we empower home buyers and real estate professionals to gain efficiency while maintaining Zillow's competitive edge. This lean, customer-centric team consists of scientists and engineers working together to deliver a delightful customer experience. We strongly believe in accountability, collaboration, and transparency.

About the role

Zillow is looking for a Principal Machine Learning Engineer on the Agentic AI team to develop innovative multimodal Agentic AI technologies. They will be hands-on in prototyping ideas, collaborating with product partners, evaluating, and deploying models to Zillow's highly scalable infrastructure platforms. They’ll be developing perception and language understanding, deep reasoning, and reinforcement learning to handle AI agent decision-making.

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer on this team, you will:

• Leverage frameworks like AgentSDK, and LangChain/LangGraph to design, prototype, and develop multi-agent systems capable of highly autonomous and context-aware interactions.
• Leverage sophisticated GenAI models including reasoning models, real-time voice API, etc., to build prototypes and later convert them into product-level skills for deployment.
• Adopt a “build, learn, and pivot” mentality, maintaining high standards for shipping into production.
• Mentor and guide engineers in using these technologies for agentic AI solutions and foster a culture of innovation and responsible AI usage.
• Translate complex research findings and system designs into clear, actionable insights for diverse audiences including executives, product teams, and external partners.
• Stay on the cutting edge of agentic AI, LLM advancements, and emerging paradigms to drive product innovation.
• Serve as the focal point for high-priority applied science projects, aligning on deliverables, timelines, and resources.
• Refine processes for experimentation, A/B testing, and production rollouts to balance innovation with reliability and responsible deployment.

This role is categorized as a Remote position, allowing employees to work from a location of their choice within the U.S., with specific pay ranges applicable in certain states. In addition to a competitive salary, this role is eligible for equity awards based on experience, performance, and location.

Who you are

You are a proactive engineer capable of marrying pioneering AI models with large-scale engineering. We are looking for someone with:

• A master's degree or higher
• Experience in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related fields focusing on foundational LLM, agentic AI, reinforcement learning, AI planning, or natural language processing
• 7+ years of hands-on experience building high-impact solutions, ideally involving agent-based systems or multi-agent collaboration
• Experience shipping user-friendly, voice-based conversational systems capable of multi-step reasoning and context-rich decision-making
• Knowledge of ASR, TTS technologies, and neural network architectures for audio tasks
• Expertise in building natural voice-driven conversational bots and agentic skills via real-time API or open-source voice models
• Understanding of evaluation metrics for ASR/TTS and multimodal foundational models
• Experience deploying scalable AI services handling hundreds of millions of interactions daily with high availability and low latency
• Publishing high-impact research in top AI/ML venues is a plus

Get to know us

Zillow is reimagining real estate to make homeownership accessible to more people. As the most-visited real estate website in the U.S., we help users find and secure their homes through innovative digital solutions and seamless experiences. Our culture of innovation, commitment to diversity and inclusion, and world-class benefits make Zillow a great place to work.

We are an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive environment. We consider all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender identity, or veteran status. For accommodations, please contact your recruiter. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in accordance with applicable laws. Upon receiving a job offer, candidates will be asked to sign a Proprietary Rights Agreement covering confidentiality, intellectual property, and related provisions.