Remote Principal Machine Learning Engineer - NLP Focus

Placements24; Pretoria; Hybrid; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Highly competitive salary and bonus

Comprehensive health benefits

Generous paid time off

Continuing learning opportunities

Global distributed team

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Remote Principal Machine Learning Engineer specializing in NLP. You will lead the design and deployment of large-scale NLP models, guide a distributed team, and drive research that shapes our AI roadmap.

This remote role targets top talent globally and offers collaboration across product, data, and engineering teams. You will mentor engineers, optimize ML pipelines, and stay ahead of NLP innovations while delivering production-ready solutions.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of experience in machine learning engineering with a strong NLP focus.
• Proficiency in Python and core NLP libraries (spaCy, NLTK, Transformers).
• Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Keras and ML pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, and deployment of large-scale NLP models and systems.
• Drive R&D in text classification, sentiment analysis, entity recognition, translation, and conversational AI.
• Develop robust, scalable ML pipelines for training and inference, production-ready.
• Collaborate with product managers and software engineers to integrate NLP into production.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote best practices in ML engineering.
• Evaluate and implement state-of-the-art NLP techniques and tools.
• Optimize model performance and inference speed for production environments.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and technical strategy for the AI/ML team.
• Stay current with NLP and ML research advancements.

Skills

NLP expertise

Python

Deep learning

Transformers

SpaCy

NLTK

Cloud platforms

Git

CI/CD

Leadership

Education

Master's or PhD in CS/AI

Tools

spaCy

NLTK

Transformers

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Keras

AWS

Azure

GCP

Git

Job description

About the Role

Our client, a prominent leader in AI & Emerging Technologies, is seeking a highly accomplished and visionary Remote Principal Machine Learning Engineer with a specialization in Natural Language Processing (NLP). This role is critical for driving the development and deployment of advanced NLP models that power innovative products and services. As a Principal Engineer, you will lead complex projects, mentor junior team members, and contribute significantly to our technological roadmap. This position is offered on a fully remote basis, enabling us to attract top talent globally. You will be working in a challenging yet rewarding environment, contributing to the forefront of AI innovation.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of large-scale NLP models and systems.
• Drive research and development in areas such as text classification, sentiment analysis, entity recognition, machine translation, and conversational AI.
• Develop and maintain robust, scalable, and efficient machine learning pipelines for training and inference.
• Collaborate with product managers and software engineers to integrate NLP models into production systems.
• Mentor and guide junior machine learning engineers, promoting best practices in software development and ML engineering.
• Evaluate and implement state-of-the-art NLP techniques and tools.
• Optimize model performance and inference speed for production environments.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and technical strategy for the AI/ML team.
• Stay current with the latest advancements in NLP and machine learning research.

Requirements

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
• Minimum of 8 years of experience in machine learning engineering, with a strong focus on NLP.
• Demonstrated expertise in building and deploying production-level NLP models.
• Proficiency in Python and core NLP libraries (e.g., spaCy, NLTK, Hugging Face Transformers).
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Keras.
• Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals, statistical modeling, and algorithm design.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their ML services.
• Strong software engineering skills, including experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD practices.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Proven ability to lead technical projects and mentor other engineers.

Benefits

• highly competitive salary and bonus structure
• comprehensive health and wellness benefits
• generous paid time off
• access to continuous learning opportunities, including conferences and advanced training
• Join a collaborative and globally distributed team focused on solving challenging problems in NLP and AI

We are based in Pretoria, Gauteng, ZA , but this role is open to remote candidates.