Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer - US

Workiva Inc.; Iowa (LA); Hybrid; USD 193,000 - 308,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

401(k) match

Comprehensive employee benefits package

Restricted Stock Units

Job summary

Workiva Inc. in Iowa is looking for a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer to build a next-generation AI platform. This role involves owning the architecture of Workiva's AI services and leading the transition to production-grade systems.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years of software engineering experience, expertise in large-scale SaaS platforms, and proficiency in Python along with other programming languages. Workiva offers a competitive salary range and a comprehensive benefits package.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including large-scale SaaS platforms.
• 5+ years designing, deploying and operating production ML, AI or data-intensive systems.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture of Workiva’s AI platform and core AI services.
• Lead the transition to production-grade, enterprise-ready systems.
• Define standards for model serving, retrieval, evaluation and governance.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Designing AI platforms

Python proficiency

Experience with large-scale SaaS platforms

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Java

Go

Scala

C++

Job description

Workiva is building a next-generation AI platform for mission‑critical workflows used by some of the world’s largest and most regulated organizations. We are seeking a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer to define how AI is architected, deployed and trusted across our platform at enterprise scale, where accuracy, auditability, security and reliability matter most.

What You’ll Do

• Own the architecture of Workiva’s AI platform and core AI services, shape how machine learning, generative AI and agentic systems are integrated across products.
• Lead the move from early adoption to production‑grade, enterprise‑ready systems.
• Define standards for model serving, retrieval, evaluation, governance and platform reliability.
• Design enterprise agentic systems, including orchestration, workflow execution, memory and multi‑agent coordination.
• Design and evolve Retrieval‑Augmented Generation capabilities for enterprise content and knowledge workflows.
• Establish evaluation methods and quality frameworks for generative AI applications.
• Assess emerging AI technologies and guide adoption strategy for Workiva’s platform.
• Influence technical direction across teams, products and platform domains; mentor staff and senior engineers; partner closely with product, security, infrastructure and architecture leaders; align teams around a shared vision for scalable, secure AI.

What You’ll Need

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including large‑scale SaaS platforms.
• 5+ years designing, deploying and operating production ML, AI or data‑intensive systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating enterprise AI platforms, including model serving, evaluation, observability and governance.
• Deep expertise in RAG, agentic systems and large‑scale knowledge systems.
• Strong understanding of foundation model ecosystems, including inference, routing, prompting and provider trade‑offs.
• Experience with AI evaluation, secure AI systems and regulated enterprise environments.
• Proven track record leading architecture across multiple teams or platform domains.
• Strong distributed systems, cloud‑native, API, reliability and operational excellence experience.
• Expert‑level Python proficiency and proficiency in at least one production language such as Java, Go, Scala or C++.
• Proven record mentoring senior engineers and technical leaders.

Working Conditions

Less than 10% travel; reliable internet access for remote working opportunities.

How You’ll Be Rewarded

• Salary range in the US: $193,000 – $308,000.
• A discretionary bonus typically paid annually.
• Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire.
• 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package.

Equal Opportunity

Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic. Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.