Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at 15 Fingers LLC?
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About This Role
THE ROLE
Agency 15 is looking for a VFX Generalist to own video editing, 2D/3D animation, and motion graphics across a client roster that ranges from tight\-turnaround commercials for home\-services and manufacturing clients to large, multi\-channel campaigns and interactive display work. This role blends traditional post\-production craft — editing, compositing, lighting, and animation — with fluency in today’s AI video generation tools, using them to extend capability, speed up iteration, and round out what a small in\-house team can produce.
You won’t need to run camera on set, but you do need a genuine, technical understanding of lighting, motion, and composition — the kind of eye that knows why a shot works, whether it was captured on set or generated. This is a hands\-on production role inside a fast\-moving agency, not a specialist silo; you’ll move between quick\-turn service\-company spots and more ambitious campaign and interactive work in the same week.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Edit and finish video content across a range of formats — broadcast/OTT commercials, social cutdowns, campaign films, and interactive display content.
- Produce 2D and 3D animation and motion graphics, from lower\-thirds and title work to full animated sequences and product visualizations.
- Apply AI video generation and editing tools (Seedance 2\.0, Google Veo, Gemini, and similar/emerging platforms) to accelerate production, generate b\-roll and supplemental footage, and extend the visual range of smaller\-budget projects.
- Light, render, and composite 3D work in Cinema 4D (or comparable), managing render farm workflows for efficient turnaround on demanding jobs.
- Execute end\-to\-end post\-production in Adobe Creative Cloud — Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and Media Encoder — including color, sound sync, and delivery specs for broadcast, digital, and interactive/display formats.
- Collaborate with producers, creative directors, and account teams to translate creative briefs into finished assets on tight deadlines, flagging risk to timeline or quality early.
- Build and maintain efficient project pipelines and file/version management so work can move cleanly between team members and freelancers under deadline pressure.
- Support technology integration on interactive and display projects, working with developers and vendors as needed.
WHAT YOU BRING
- 3–6\+ years in video editing, VFX, or motion design, ideally in an agency, studio, or in\-house production environment handling multiple concurrent projects.
- Strong working knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud (Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop) and Cinema 4D or an equivalent 3D application.
- Real experience with AI video/image generation tools (Seedance 2\.0, Veo, Gemini, Runway, Kling, Sora, or similar) and a point of view on when to use them versus traditional production.
- Deep practical understanding of lighting and composition principles — for 3D/CG work as well as evaluating and enhancing live\-action footage — even without a camera\-operation background.
- Comfort with render farm workflows and file/asset management on larger renders and campaigns.
- Process\-minded: able to work efficiently under tight deadlines, manage multiple projects in flight, and communicate status clearly as part of a small, senior team.
- A reel demonstrating both animation/motion work and video editing — required to be considered.
NICE TO HAVE
- Experience with interactive or display technology integration (touchscreens, projection, real\-time engines, or similar).
- Sound design or audio sweetening experience.
- Familiarity with brand and manufacturing\-sector client work.
COMPENSATION
Base pay depends on experience level, scope (contract vs. full\-time), and 3D/AI skill depth. As a market reference point, national compensation data for VFX Generalist roles centers in the low\-to\-mid $60,000s (25th–75th percentile roughly $52,000–$74,000/year), while Western New York\-specific benchmarks for VFX/motion roles typically run somewhat lower given regional cost of living — generally $50,000–$65,000 base for generalist\-level work.
Given the added AI\-tool fluency this role requires, Agency 15 is targeting a Buffalo\-adjusted range of approximately:
- Full\-time: $65,000–$80,000/year base, commensurate with experience and 3D/AI depth.
- Contract: $35–$55/hour, depending on scope and project mix.
HOW TO APPLY
Submit a resume and a reel or portfolio link demonstrating both animation/motion work and video editing. Applications without a reel will not be considered.
ABOUT AGENCY 15
Agency 15 is a 25\-person, full\-service advertising and marketing agency based In Buffalo, NY. We think client business\-objective\-first: every creative and media decision starts with what a client actually needs to grow, then we bring brand, strategy, and production capability to bear against that goal.
We operate on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), which keeps our team aligned, accountable, and focused on a clear set of company\-wide and departmental priorities. Our client base spans mid\-market manufacturing, home services, higher education, and regional B2B and B2C brands, with work ranging from quick\-turn local commercials to large, multi\-channel campaigns.
We're a small, senior team by design, our leadership includes our COO, and Director of Accounts, Creative, Finance, and Technology. Which means people who join us take on real ownership fast, work directly with clients and leadership, and see their work in market quickly. We're actively building out AI\-leveraged delivery as a core differentiator, and this role is part of that investment.
Salary Context
This $72K-$114K range is in the lower quartile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At 15 Fingers LLC, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($93K) sits 56% below the category median. Disclosed range: $72K to $114K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.
15 Fingers LLC AI Hiring
15 Fingers LLC has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in Buffalo, NY, US. Compensation range: $114K - $114K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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