Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Medical Imaging

firstPRO US; Marlborough (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

firstPRO US is seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to lead the development of computer vision models for a medical imaging platform in a regulated product environment. The role combines hands-on model development, technical leadership, and validation work.

You will work with clinical experts and engineering teams to deliver accurate, reproducible models for production, addressing data preprocessing, annotation workflows, and robust evaluation across diagnostic categories.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in CV/DL for medical imaging.
• Advanced Python and experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Hands-on expertise in CNNs, transfer learning, and image segmentation.
• Experience with medical or microscopy images, including high-resolution processing.
• Strong understanding of model evaluation, class imbalance, and reproducible training.
• Ability to communicate findings clearly and produce engineering documentation.
• Master’s or PhD in CS/Engineering; bachelor’s with equivalent experience considered.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine deep learning models for image classification, segmentation, and related tasks.
• Identify cell boundaries and nuclei; measure cellular characteristics and overlapping cells.
• Manage training data, annotation workflows, data partitioning, and preprocessing.
• Address class imbalance, staining variations, and incomplete labels.
• Establish evaluation methods for clinical performance across categories.
• Maintain reproducible experiments and prevent data leakage.
• Collaborate with clinicians to improve labeling and review challenging cases.
• Prepare technical docs, testing protocols, and validation results for regulated development.
• Guide engineers on model development practices and deployment standards.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

TensorFlow

CNNs

Image Segmentation

Transfer Learning

Medical Imaging

Model Evaluation

Experiment Tracking

Documentation

Education

Master’s or PhD in CS/Engineering

Bachelor’s degree with equivalent experience

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Medical Imaging

Employment Type: Direct Hire

Our client is seeking a senior engineer to lead the development of computer vision models for a medical imaging platform. This role combines hands‑on model development, technical leadership, and validation work within a regulated product environment.

The engineer will develop algorithms that identify and categorize cells, isolate cellular structures, and translate image‑level findings into diagnostic outputs. They will work closely with clinical specialists and engineering teams to deliver accurate, reproducible models suitable for production.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine deep learning models for image classification, segmentation, and related prediction tasks.
• Build methods to identify cell boundaries and nuclei, measure cellular characteristics, and process overlapping cells.
• Manage training data preparation, annotation workflows, dataset partitioning, and image preprocessing.
• Address uneven class distributions, differences in staining and imaging conditions, and incomplete labels.
• Establish evaluation methods that measure clinical performance across diagnostic categories.
• Maintain reproducible experiments and prevent data leakage between training and evaluation datasets.
• Collaborate with clinical experts to improve labeling consistency and review challenging cases.
• Prepare technical documentation, testing protocols, and validation results supporting regulated product development.
• Guide engineers on model development practices, code quality, and deployment standards.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including at least 5 years developing and deploying deep learning solutions for computer vision.
• Advanced Python skills and strong experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Hands‑on expertise in convolutional neural networks, transfer learning, and image segmentation.
• Experience working with medical or microscopy images, including high‑resolution image processing and variation in color or staining.
• Strong understanding of model evaluation, class imbalance, experiment tracking, and reproducible training.
• Ability to communicate technical findings clearly and produce thorough engineering documentation.
• Master’s or doctorate in computer science, engineering, or a related discipline; a bachelor’s degree with equivalent experience will also be considered.

Preferred Experience

• AI development for digital pathology or cell‑based imaging.
• Supporting regulatory submissions for medical device software.
• Familiarity with medical device software lifecycle, quality, and risk management standards.
• Image annotation platforms, instance segmentation, and imaging calibration.
• Optimizing models for deployment through quantization or inference acceleration.
• Technical leadership or mentorship of a small engineering team.