Senior AI Foundation Engineer - Scalable ML Infra for Autonomy

Merlin Labs, Inc.; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Catered lunches

Snacks and beverages

Health, dental, life insurance

Unlimited vacation

401k with match

Job summary

Merlin Labs, Inc. is seeking a senior AI foundation engineer to own and evolve our core AI models, training and inference infrastructure, and data pipelines for autonomous aircraft systems.

You will mentor engineers, define standards, and collaborate with multiple teams to ensure safety and reliability across the stack. You will work on distributed training, model evaluation, and integration with edge deployment in a fast-moving startup environment at Merlin HQ in Boston, MA.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with AI/ML systems
• Experience building AI-first autonomy software stacks (Perception, Planning, Prediction, Actuation)
• Design and deliver large-scale production systems from architecture to operation
• Proficient in PyTorch, TensorFlow, and at least one systems language (C++, Go, Rust)

Responsibilities

• Strategize foundation model selection, refactor and maintain core AI models
• Define benchmarks for evaluation, regression testing, and safety thresholds
• Architect data pipelines ingesting and versioning flight data for autonomy teams
• Identify bottlenecks slowing AI development velocity across Merlin's org
• Collaborate with AI infra, Simulation, and Flight Software teams on interfaces
• Mentor engineers and conduct design reviews to raise code quality
• Lead scoping and estimation for large AI foundation projects
• Evaluate open-source tooling and contribute where appropriate
• Document architecture decisions and runbooks for safety and maintainability
• Contribute to hiring by conducting technical interviews and defining engineering bar

Skills

AI foundations

ML infrastructure

Pytorch

TensorFlow

Distributed training

Data pipelines

Education

BS/MS in CS or related field

Tools

Weights & Biases

MLFlow

JAX

Job description

Merlin Labs, Inc. is seeking a senior AI foundation engineer to own and evolve our core AI models, training and inference infrastructure, and data pipelines for autonomous aircraft systems.

You will mentor engineers, define standards, and collaborate with multiple teams to ensure safety and reliability across the stack. You will work on distributed training, model evaluation, and integration with edge deployment in a fast-moving startup environment at Merlin HQ in Boston, MA.