Senior AI Platform Architect: Autonomous Agents

AppFolio; Goleta (CA); On-site; USD 264,000 - 363,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio seeks a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to shape the Realm-X platform and lead autonomous AI capabilities for property management. You will own mission-critical AI systems, define long-term strategy, and collaborate across teams to deliver scalable, high-impact AI solutions that go beyond assistance to automation and optimization.

This role sits at the intersection of traditional ML, deep learning, and generative AI, building systems that perform tasks end-to-end with reliability.

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field (required).
• 10+ years of experience building software systems, with significant focus on ML/AI (or equivalent impact).
• Combined academic and industry track record: Published research and shipped production systems.
• Deep ML expertise: Traditional ML, Deep Learning, and Generative AI/LLMs (prompting, fine-tuning, RAG, agents, tool and skills use).
• LLM post-training: Direct, hands-on experience with LLM post-training — SFT, RLHF, DPO, and/or RL — at non-trivial scale.
• Full ML lifecycle: Strong understanding of data extraction, model training, evaluation, deployment, and production integration.
• Core stack: Python, PyTorch, NumPy, AWS, Docker, SQL, embeddings, and RAG.
• Agent tooling: LangChain, LangGraph, and LLM observability tools (LangSmith).
• Production ML at scale: Designing and operating production-grade ML systems at scale.
• Ontology & knowledge graphs: Experience with ontology-driven systems, knowledge graphs, or semantic layers for AI domains.
• AI-native engineering: Proficiency with AI coding tools and workflows (Copilot, ChatGPT, code generation).

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and architecture for Realm-X AI systems in partnership with senior leadership.
• Scale Intelligent AI Agents: design and deploy multi-agent systems with orchestration across specialist agents.
• Improve the Foundation: establish platform primitives for context-aware, action-oriented AI and end-to-end ML standards.
• Production Excellence: architect scalable, real-time AI applications with high deployment standards.
• ML for Autonomous Property Management: drive autonomous property management operations and selective training pipelines.
• Reinforcement Learning for Agent Policies: build data/feedback loops for RL over agent policies in complex environments.

Skills

Systems thinker

Production ML in production

Ambiguity handling

Influence across teams

Originality and architecture

Owner-operator mindset

Fast delivery with judgment

Collaboration and humility

Sustainability and balance

Vertical real estate focus

Education

MS/PhD in CS/ML

Tools

Python

PyTorch

NumPy

AWS

Docker

SQL

Embeddings

RAG

LangChain

LangGraph

Job description

AppFolio seeks a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to shape the Realm-X platform and lead autonomous AI capabilities for property management. You will own mission-critical AI systems, define long-term strategy, and collaborate across teams to deliver scalable, high-impact AI solutions that go beyond assistance to automation and optimization.

This role sits at the intersection of traditional ML, deep learning, and generative AI, building systems that perform tasks end-to-end with reliability.