Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Memory & Context)

Zillow Group; Myrtle Point (OR); Remote; USD 199,000 - 318,000; Full time

Job summary

Zillow Group is seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer for the Agentic AI team. You will own the architecture of agent memory—what the assistant remembers across conversations and how memories are written, retrieved, updated, and retired.

You will lead context engineering for production agents, assembling, prioritizing, and compressing context from conversation history, user memory, tools and skills so every response is relevant, fast, and cost‑efficient.

Qualifications

• Master's degree or higher in CS, EE, or related field.
• 5+ years deploying large-scale ML systems, including production LLM-based agents.
• Hands-on experience building agents end to end: orchestration, prompt engineering, and context engineering.

Responsibilities

• Own the memory architecture and data retention strategies for the agent.
• Lead context engineering for production agents to ensure relevant, fast, and cost-efficient responses.
• Build and orchestrate agents end to end from design to deployment; define evaluation frameworks for memory and context quality.

Skills

Technical leadership

Python

Communication

LLM agents

Education

Master's degree or higher in CS, EE, or related field

Tools

LangGraph

Agents SDK

AutoGen

Job description

About the role

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer on the Agentic AI team, you will get to:

• Own the architecture of agent memory: what Zillow's assistant remembers about each user across conversations, and how memories are written, retrieved, updated, and retired
• Lead context engineering for production agents: assembling, prioritizing, and compressing context from conversation history, user memory, tools, and skills so every response is relevant, fast, and cost-efficient
• Build and orchestrate agents end to end, from prompt and context design to deployment and operation in production
• Define evaluation frameworks for memory and context quality, offline and online, and use them to drive product and technical decisions
• Stay on the cutting edge of emerging agentic paradigms, including memory architectures and long-context techniques, and convert them into tangible product innovation
• Lead complex, multi-team initiatives and communicate technical direction clearly to engineers, partner teams, and leadership

This role has been categorized as a Remote position. employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company.

U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.

Salary ranges:

• In California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $209,400.00 - $334,600.00 annually.
• In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia the standard base pay range for this role is $199,000.00 - $317,800.00 annually.

The base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations. In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Employees in this role will not be paid below the salary threshold for exempt employees in the state where they reside.

Who you are

You are a hands-on technical leader with high agency: when a problem is ambiguous or blocked, you go talk to the people who can solve it, and you make your work visible.

Must-haves

• A master's degree or above, or equivalent experience, in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience deploying large-scale ML systems, including at least the most recent year building and shipping LLM-based agents in production
• Hands-on experience building agents end to end: orchestration, prompt engineering and optimization, and context engineering
• Experience evaluating agentic systems and using those results to improve them
• Proven technical leadership: you have influenced technical direction across teams and mentored other engineers
• Strong communication skills, including presenting to senior leadership
• Strong programming skills in Python and familiarity with agentic AI frameworks such as LangGraph, Agents SDK, or AutoGen

Nice-to-haves

• Experience designing agent or user memory systems (long-term, episodic, or user-profile memory)
• Experience with dialogue systems that sustain long, multi-session conversations
• Personalization of AI assistants from conversation history
• Publications, patents, or open-source contributions related to memory, long-context models, or agents

Get to know us

At Zillow, we're reimagining how people move—through the real estate market and through their careers. As the most-visited real estate platform in the U.S., we help people navigate buying, selling, financing and renting with greater ease and confidence. Whether you're working in tech, sales, operations, or design, you'll be part of a company reshaping an industry and helping more people make home a reality. How we work is a key part of that transformation. Through Cloud HQ, our strategic approach to distributed work, most employees have the flexibility to work from wherever you're most productive—enabling us to move fast, stay connected and deliver on our people promise. Zillow is honored to be recognized among the best workplaces in the U.S. Zillow was named one of FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2026, and included on TIME's America's Best Companies 2026 list, reflecting our commitment to creating an innovative, inclusive, and engaging culture where employees are empowered to grow. No matter where you sit in the organization, your work will help drive innovation, support our customers, and move the industry—and your career—forward, together.