Senior Staff ML Ops Engineer

Abbott Laboratories; Santa Clara (CA); Hybrid; USD 131,000 - 261,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

HIP PPO medical plan

Employer retirement contribution

Tuition reimbursement

Education benefit

Job summary

Abbott Laboratories in Santa Clara, CA seeks a Senior Staff ML Ops Engineer to drive architecture, scalability, and governance for enterprise AI platforms. You will partner with data scientists, infrastructure teams, and product leaders to accelerate AI deployment while ensuring reliability and regulatory compliance.

The role requires deep ML infrastructure experience, cloud/container technologies, and leadership to mentor engineers and influence the AI technology roadmap across Abbott’s Medical

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field.
• 8+ years of experience; advanced degree 6+ years or PhD 4+ years.
• Experience building ML infrastructure for experiment tracking, model training, data versioning, annotation tools, model serving, monitoring and observability.
• Experience with GenAI and Agentic AI development infrastructure including grounding, RAG, MCP and prompt engineering.
• Experience cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), containers (Docker/Kubernetes), workflow tools (Airflow), and IaC (Terraform).
• Proficiency with Azure ML SDK, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Spark; strong data modeling skills.
• Experience with agile methods (scrum/Kanban) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Security by Design in AI product development; leadership interactions.
• FDA-regulated domain familiarity and clinical-grade ML would help.

Responsibilities

• Architect a scalable ML infrastructure spanning data ingestion to monitoring and governance.
• Lead CI/CD for ML models, including testing, rollout, rollback, and compliance.
• Ensure HIPAA/GDPR compliance and alignment with SaMD guidelines.
• Collaborate with data scientists, infrastructure, product leaders; mentor ML/SW engineers.
• Drive architecture strategy, bridge science and engineering, guide long-term AI roadmap.

Skills

ML Ops

Cloud platforms

GenAI

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD

Security by design

Leadership

AI governance

Data modeling

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Master's degree/PhD preferred

Tools

Azure ML SDK

Azure Data Factory

Databricks

Spark

Terraform

Job description

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Our medical devices help more than 10,000 people have healthier hearts, improve quality of life for thousands of people living with chronic pain and movement disorders, and liberate more than 500,000 people with diabetes from routine fingersticks. Working at Abbott At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and family, be your true self and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:

• Employees can qualify for free medical coverage in our Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year
• An excellent retirement savings plan with high employer contribution
• Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.
• A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries around the world and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.
• A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as a best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

THE OPPORTUNITY

This Senior Staff ML Ops Engineer position can work out of our Santa Clara, CA location. Senior Staff ML Ops Engineer will provide technical leadership for Abbott's Medical Devices Digital (MDD) AI initiatives, driving the architecture, scalability, and operational excellence of enterprise AI platforms. This role bridges advanced AI innovation with production-grade engineering, defining technical strategy, establishing best practices for MLOps and AI governance, and leading the design and evolution of robust, scalable AI infrastructure. The Senior Staff ML Ops Engineer will partner closely with data scientists, algorithm developers, infrastructure teams, product leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders to accelerate the deployment of AI solutions, ensure reliability and compliance, and influence the long-term AI technology roadmap across the organization.

What You’ll Work On

Architect a highly available, secure, scalable cloud/on-prem hybrid ML infrastructure that includes data ingestion, annotation, feature engineering, training, validation, deployment, and monitoring. Engage directly with ML scientists and act as the team’s bridge/glue between science and engineering. Implement robust CI/CD workflows for ML models, including testing, rollout, rollback strategies, and compliance governance. Ensure strict compliance with regulatory and privacy standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, and Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) guidelines. Drive alignment and adoption of architecture strategy with business leaders. Mentor and guide ML engineers and SW engineers, establish coding standards, and conduct detailed design and architectural reviews.

Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, Engineering Mathematics, or related field.
• Minimum 8+ years of experience, Master’s Degree with 6+ years of related experience, or Ph.D. with 4+ years of related experience.
• Deep experience building ML infrastructure for experiment tracking, model training, data versioning, annotation tools, model serving, monitoring and observability.
• Experience with GenAI and Agentic AI development infrastructure including grounding, RAG, MCP and prompt engineering.
• Experience developing AI products on cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes), pipeline orchestration tools (e.g. Airflow), IaC (e,g., Terraform).
• Proficient in tools like Azure ML SDK, Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Spark, or related technologies.
• Strong understanding of database technologies (e.g., SQL, NoSQL) and data modeling principles.
• Significant experience working with agile software development methods, such as scrum and Kanban and working within CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience incorporating Security by Design principles into AI product development.
• Experience of senior executive/leadership engagement.
• Exposure to various aspects of architecture practices and frameworks: business, application, data, security, infrastructure and governance.
• Experience with microservices architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience in reviewing and selecting Technical and Applications Architectures solutions.
• Certifications and specializations in AI/ML, LLMs and Cloud platforms.
• Excellent oral, written and presentation communication skills.
• Team leadership experience and demonstrated mentorship capabilities.
• Preferred Experience working in an FDA-regulated business (e.g. validated software related to medical, pharmaceutical, or life sciences products).
• Experience with FDA 510(k) submissions and clinical-grade ML product development.
• Solid understanding of the design thinking process, as well as a passion and know-how for influencing design strategy.
• Publications, patents, or notable contributions to open-source projects.
• Background in signal processing, computer vision, or multimodal learning.
• Familiarity with data security best practices, data anonymization, synthetic data generation, and federated learning.

The base pay for this position is $130,700.00 – $261,300.00

JOB FAMILY: Product Development

DIVISION: MD Medical Devices

LOCATION: United States > Santa Clara : Building B - SC

ADDITIONAL LOCATIONS:

WORK SHIFT: Standard

TRAVEL: Yes, 5 % of the Time

MEDICAL SURVEILLANCE: Not Applicable

SIGNIFICANT WORK ACTIVITIES: Continuous sitting for prolonged periods (more than 2 consecutive hours in an 8 hour day), Keyboard use (greater or equal to 50% of the workday)

Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer of Minorities/Women/Individuals with Disabilities/Protected Veterans.

EEO is the Law link - English: http://webstorage.abbott.com/common/External/EEO_English.pdf

EEO is the Law link - Espanol: http://webstorage.abbott.com/common/External/EEO_Spanish.pdf

Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to employee diversity.

Abbott is about the power of health. For more than 135 years, Abbott has been helping people reach their potential — because better health allows people and communities to achieve more. With a diverse, global network serving customers in more than 160 countries, we create new solutions — across the spectrum of health, around the world, for all stages of life. Whether it’s next-generation diagnostics, life-changing devices, science-based nutrition, or novel reformulations, we are advancing some of the most innovative and revolutionary technologies in healthcare, helping people live their best lives through better health. The people of Abbott come to work each day with relentless energy, enthusiasm and a promise to enhance the health and well‑being of millions of people. They push the boundaries to help manage and treat some of life’s greatest health challenges. We invite you to explore opportunities at Abbott, to see if your talents and career aspirations may fit with our openings.

An equal opportunity employer, Abbott welcomes and encourages diversity in our workforce.