Remote Principal ML Engineer — Lead & Deploy AI Solutions

Placements24; Soweto; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Retirement plan

Unlimited PTO

Professional development budget

Stock options

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to lead design, development, and deployment of cutting-edge ML models in a fully remote global team. You will shape ML strategy, mentor engineers, and drive production-ready systems across the ML lifecycle.

The role requires a PhD or Master’s in a quantitative field, 8+ years of ML experience, and strong leadership and cloud-based ML deployment skills.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Statistics, or related quantitative field.
• 8+ years of experience in ML engineering or related field with a proven track record of building and deploying ML systems.
• Expertise in ML algorithms, deep learning frameworks, and classical ML techniques.
• Proficiency in Python with ML libraries (Scikit-learn, Pandas, NumPy).
• Strong understanding of software engineering principles including data structures, algorithms, and system design.
• Experience with MLOps tools and CI/CD for ML, model deployment and monitoring.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their ML services.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and leadership abilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, and implementation of advanced ML models and algorithms.
• Develop and maintain production-grade ML pipelines for scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Collaborate with data scientists and engineers to translate research into production systems.
• Optimize models for performance, accuracy, and resource use.
• Design data collection, feature engineering, and model validation strategies.
• Deploy models to production and establish monitoring/maintenance processes.
• Mentor junior ML engineers and data scientists.
• Stay current with research in ML, DL, and AI and contribute to roadmaps.

Skills

ML algorithms

Deep learning

Python

ML libraries

MLOps

CI/CD for ML

Cloud platforms

Leadership

Communication

Education

Ph.D. or Master’s in CS/AI/ML/Statistics

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Scikit-learn

Pandas

NumPy

CI/CD

Job description

Placements24 is seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to lead design, development, and deployment of cutting-edge ML models in a fully remote global team. You will shape ML strategy, mentor engineers, and drive production-ready systems across the ML lifecycle.

The role requires a PhD or Master’s in a quantitative field, 8+ years of ML experience, and strong leadership and cloud-based ML deployment skills.