Remote Principal Machine Learning Engineer - NLP Focus

Placements24; South Africa; Remote; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and bonus

Health and wellness benefits

Generous paid time off

Learning opportunities and conferences

Global distributed team

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a remote Principal Machine Learning Engineer with a specialization in NLP to lead the design and deployment of large-scale NLP models. You will mentor engineers, drive NLP research, and align ML initiatives with product goals across a globally distributed team.

The role offers a fully remote work setup, competitive salary with bonus, and robust learning opportunities. Pretoria, Gauteng base noted, but candidates may work remotely worldwide.

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in machine learning engineering, with a strong focus on NLP.
• Proven ability to build and deploy production NLP models.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their ML services.
• Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals, statistics, and algorithm design.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of large-scale NLP models and systems.
• Drive research and development in text classification, sentiment analysis, entity recognition, machine translation, and conversational AI.
• Develop and maintain robust, scalable ML pipelines for training and inference.
• Collaborate with product managers and software engineers to productionize NLP models.
• Mentor junior ML 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.

Skills

NLP engineering

Python

Software engineering

CI/CD

Git

Communication

Project leadership

Education

Master's or Ph.D. in CS/AI/NLP

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

HuggingFace Transformers

spaCy

NLTK

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

• This fully remote role comes with a highly competitive salary and bonus structure, alongside comprehensive health and wellness benefits.
• Our client values work‑life balance and offers generous paid time off.
• You will have access to continuous learning opportunities, including conferences and advanced training, to stay at the forefront of AI innovation.
• Join a collaborative and globally distributed team focused on solving challenging problems in NLP and AI.
• This is a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on cutting‑edge AI technologies from anywhere in the world, supported by a company that invests in its people.
• We are based in Pretoria, Gauteng, ZA, but this role is open to remote candidates.