Senior AI Foundation Model Engineer - Autonomous Flight

Merlinlabs; Boston, San Francisco (MA, CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Catered lunches

Snacks and beverages on-site

401k with match

On-site perks and amenities

Job summary

Merlin Labs, based in Boston, MA, is seeking a senior software engineer to lead the AI Foundation and large-scale ML infrastructure. You will architect data pipelines, govern model evaluation, and align cross-functional teams across AI, Simulation, and Flight Software.

You will mentor engineers, define project scoping, and drive adoption of open-source tooling while ensuring safety and reliability in production systems.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with AI model development and ML infrastructure.
• Experience in AI-first autonomy stack including Perception, Behavior Planning, Prediction and Actuation.
• Proven ability to design and deliver large-scale production systems independently.
• Deep proficiency in PyTorch and TensorFlow, with systems language experience (C++, Rust, Go).
• Hands-on with distributed training frameworks and scalable infrastructure.
• Experience deploying models to edge HPC environments.
• Strong data pipeline design background with streaming and batch processing.

Responsibilities

• Technically strategize Foundation model selection, refactor and maintain core AI models and training infra.
• Define benchmarks for model evaluation, safety, and performance thresholds pre-deployment.
• Architect and own data pipelines ingesting, labeling, versions of flight data.
• Identify bottlenecks slowing AI development and improve velocity across teams.
• Collaborate with AI infra, Simulation, and Flight Software teams to align interfaces.
• Mentor junior/mid engineers, conduct design reviews, and raise code quality.
• Lead scoping and estimation for large AI projects, turning requirements into plans.
• Evaluate open-source tooling and research; contribute back where appropriate.
• Document architecture decisions and runbooks for safety review and maintenance.

Skills

AI infrastructure design

Distributed training

Model registry systems

MLOps

Python

C++

Pytorch

TensorFlow

Data pipelines

System architecture

Mentoring engineers

Tools

Weights & Biases

MLFlow

NVIDIA tooling

Job description

Merlin Labs, based in Boston, MA, is seeking a senior software engineer to lead the AI Foundation and large-scale ML infrastructure. You will architect data pipelines, govern model evaluation, and align cross-functional teams across AI, Simulation, and Flight Software.

You will mentor engineers, define project scoping, and drive adoption of open-source tooling while ensuring safety and reliability in production systems.