Sr. Staff Engineer - Applied AI, Patient

Rula; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work

Transparent pay ranges

Health benefits

401(k)

Paid parental leave

EAP

Wellness stipend

Job summary

Rula, a remote-first mental health company, is seeking a Sr. Staff Engineer – Applied AI in the United States to lead and scale AI/ML-powered patient experiences.

You'll build production models, help shape infrastructure for the Patient Engineering team, and collaborate with the ML group on standards, architecture, and deployments—driving high-impact, reusable AI capabilities across products. Ideal candidates have 10+ years in software or ML, deep ML lifecycle expertise, and proven 0→1

Qualifications

• 10+ years software/ML engineering with production ML experience.
• Strong ML lifecycle leadership across problem formulation, training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring.
• Experience building shared ML infrastructure and reusable capabilities.
• Deep experience with recommender/ranking/personalization and related evaluation.
• Hands-on experience with production GenAI systems, including latency, cost, privacy/safety.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve production ML models and AI-powered systems for Patient Engineering.
• Build reusable capabilities and infrastructure in collaboration with the ML team.
• Determine where to use custom ML, foundation models, or deterministic approaches.
• Partner with ML team to ensure scalable, reliable AI delivery.

Skills

Python

ML engineering

Production ML

Technical leadership

Experimentation

Foundation models/GenAI

Recommender systems

Tools

Model serving

Training/inference pipelines

Observability

Job description

At Rula, we are a remote-first company that believes mental health is just as important as physical health. We recognize that mental health issues can be complex and multifaceted, and we are dedicated to treating the whole person, not just the symptoms.

We aim to create a world where mental health is no longer stigmatized or marginalised, but rather is embraced as an integral part of one's overall well‑being.

We believe that by providing quality care that is both evidence‑based and compassionate, we can empower individuals to take charge of their mental health and achieve their full potential. We are passionate about making a positive impact on the lives of those struggling with mental health issues and we strive to be a force for positive change in the field of mental healthcare.

About the Role

We're hiring a Sr. Staff Engineer – Applied AI, Patient to help Patient Engineering build and scale AI/ML‑powered patient experiences across areas such as matching, ranking, recommendations, onboarding, and personalization.

Rula is at an important stage in its ML journey. We already have ML models and pipelines powering product experiences, with additional capabilities under development. At the same time, much of the engineering foundation required to develop, deploy, evaluate, and operate ML consistently at scale is still ahead of us.

This is a deeply hands‑on technical leadership role. You'll develop and improve production models and AI‑powered systems, build critical capabilities needed by Patient Engineering, and partner closely with Rula's ML team on shared infrastructure, models, standards, and architectural decisions.

You won't own a single model or product surface. You'll go where the highest‑leverage Applied AI problems are—developing models, building reusable capabilities, improving existing systems, or determining whether a problem is best solved with custom ML, a foundation model/AI service, deterministic software, or a hybrid approach.

Success means enabling Patient Engineering to build better intelligent experiences while creating a strong technical partnership with Rula's ML team—resulting in better models, reusable capabilities, and faster, higher‑quality delivery of AI/ML‑powered patient experiences.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software and/or ML engineering experience, including significant experience designing, building, deploying, and operating production ML systems with measurable product or business impact. Particularly Python, with experience building scalable systems and personally writing and reviewing production‑quality code.
• Deep hands‑on ML expertise and technical leadership across the ML lifecycle: demonstrated experience with problem formulation, data/feature engineering, model development and training, evaluation, experimentation, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement, while setting technical direction across teams, influencing architecture, mentoring senior engineers, and exercising strong judgment about when to use custom ML, foundation models/AI services, deterministic approaches, or hybrids.
• Demonstrated 0→1 experience building shared ML infrastructure or reusable capabilities adopted across teams, such as feature infrastructure, training/inference pipelines, model serving, evaluation, observability, or lifecycle tooling.
• Deep experience with recommendation, ranking, relevance, personalization, search, or matching systems, including rigorous evaluation connecting offline model performance to online experiments and product/business outcomes.
• Strong evaluation and experimentation rigor connecting offline model performance to online experiments and product/business outcomes.
• Hands‑on experience building and operating modern foundation model/GenAI systems in production, including evaluation, reliability, latency, cost, privacy/safety, and operational tradeoffs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience helping an organization evolve from early‑stage or ad hoc ML development toward mature ML engineering practices.
• Experience operating ML systems in healthcare, financial services, or another regulated/high‑trust environment.

We're serious about your well‑being! As part of our team, full‑time employees receive:

• 100% remote work environment: Working hours to support a healthy work‑life balance, ensuring you can meet both professional and personal commitments (must be based in United States, currently not hiring in Hawaii)
• Attractive pay and benefits: Full transparency of pay ranges regardless of where you live in the United States
• Comprehensive health benefits: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and FSA/HSA
• 401(k) plan access: Start saving for your future
• Generous time‑off policies: Including 2 company‑wide shutdown weeks each year for self‑care (for most employees)
• Paid parental leave: Available for all parents, including birthing, non‑birthing, adopting, and fostering
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Supporting your mental and physical health
• Quarterly department stipend: Fun team‑building activities or in‑person gatherings
• Community and employee resource groups: Participate in groups that celebrate employee identity and lived experiences, fostering a sense of community and belonging for all
• Home office stipend: New hire home office stipend & $50 monthly stipend to help cover internet or cell phone expenses
• Wellness at Rula program: Year‑round wellness initiatives and a $50/month wellness stipend

Our team

We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental to our mission of making mental healthcare work for everyone. We are dedicated to having a culture of inclusion that will support our employees in feeling safe, seen, heard, and valued.