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About This Role
State Air Resources Board
JC\-512724 *
Senior Advisor, Sustainable Communities Policy and Planning
STAFF AIR POLLUTION SPECIALIST
$10,521\.00 \- $13,173\.00 per Month
New to State candidates will be hired into the minimum salary of the classification or minimum of alternate range when applicable.
Final Filing Date: 4/12/2026
Application Methods:Electronic (Using your CalCareer Account)
By Mail
Drop\-off
Job Description and Duties
The Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division (STCD) of CARB is recruiting for a Staff Air Pollution Specialist (SAPS) to work in its Sustainable Communities Policy and Planning Section.
The Section is focused on reducing emissions by increasing opportunities to travel by bike, walking, and transit.
This position will be a senior policy lead on CARB’s work to advance implementation of land use and transportation system development strategies that reduce emissions and support the transition to a carbon\-free transportation system in California.
In the near\-term, this position will focus on several high\-priority initiatives, including:
- California's Senate Bill (SB) 375 program target updates and related policy work;
- Supporting CARB's SB 375 Sustainable Communities Strategy Evaluation Guidelines update, including development of a new evaluation protocol; and
- SB 150 policy reporting to the Legislature.
This individual will convene and facilitate partnerships between CARB and various State, regional, and local agency leaders, transit and other mobility service providers, builders, community interest groups, and a variety of other non\-governmental stakholders on the development of strategies, regulations, and other policy initiatives with immediate and long\-range impact. The Staff APS will work with sector experts to evaluate policy proposals and to connect project assignments to CARB’s broader objectives to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, criteria pollutants, and air toxics. In addition, the Staff APS will prepare and present comprehensive reports on land use, transportation, and housing issues and policies to CARB management and external parties and will participate in high\-profile meetings with Administration officials, legislative staff, local governments, as well as represent CARB at public forums and workshops.
Working Conditions
This position may be eligible for hybrid in\-office work and in\-state telework. The amount of telework is at the agency's discretion and is based on the California Air Resources Boards' (CARB) current telework policy. While the CARB may support telework, some in\-person attendance is also required.
The positions at the CARB may be eligible for telework with in\-person attendance based on the operational needs of the position under Government Code 14200 for eligible applicants residing in California, subject to the candidate meeting telework eligibility criteria outlined in the CalEPA telework policy and/or future program need. Employees not residing in California are not eligible for telework. Regardless of hybrid telework eligibility, all employees may be required to report to the position’s designated headquarters location at their own expense, as indicated on their duty statement.
Effective July 1, 2025, the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) implemented the Personal Leave Program 2025 (PLP 2025\). PLP 2025 directs that each employee shall receive a 3 percent reduction in pay in exchange for 5 hours PLP 2025 leave credits, monthly. The salary range(s) included in the job advertisement do not reflect the 3 percent reduction in pay.
- Position located in a high\-rise building.
- Requires being in a stationary position, consistent with office work, for extended periods.
- Standard office environment (for example, artificial lighting, controlled temperature, etc.)
- Daily use of a personal computer, office equipment, and/or telephone.
Position Details
Job Code \#: JC\-512724
Position \#(s):
673\-920\-3875\-011
Working Title: Senior Advisor, Sustainable Communities Policy and Planning
Classification: STAFF AIR POLLUTION SPECIALIST
$10,521\.00 \- $13,173\.00
New to State candidates will be hired into the minimum salary of the classification or minimum of alternate range when applicable.
\# of Positions: Multiple
Work Location: Sacramento County
Telework: Hybrid
Job Type: Permanent, Full Time
Department Information
This employer participates in E\-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I\-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.; for more information about E\-Verify, please go to www.dhs.gov/e\-verify
CARB values diversity at all levels of the organization and is committed to fostering an environment where employees from various backgrounds, cultures, and personal experiences are welcomed and can thrive. CARB believes the diversity of our employees collectively makes up one of the world’s most respected environmental organizations. CARB offers various modern interview options, including remote phone and video interviews. Join CARB and help us improve the lives of all Californians.
Department Website: http://www.arb.ca.gov
Special Requirements
Applicants must include a Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) for this recruitment. The SOQ is a narrative discussion prepared by the applicant describing how their skills, knowledge, abilities, education, training, and experience qualify them for the position. The SOQ documents each candidate’s ability to present information clearly and concisely in writing. Candidates whose applications do not include the required SOQ will not be considered for this position. Cover letters and resumes do not take the place of the SOQ.
- Require Name on SOQ
- Require Job Control Number on SOQ
- Maximum number of pages: 2
Please include a clear and concise narrative describing why you are interested in this position and how your experiences have prepared you to contribute to CARB’s objective to advance sustainable communities implementation through this position. This will be used for interview screening in addition to your application.
Application Instructions
Completed applications and all required documents must be received or postmarked by the Final Filing Date in order to be considered. Dates printed on Mobile Bar Codes, such as the Quick Response (QR) Codes available at the USPS, are not considered Postmark dates for the purpose of determining timely filing of an application.
Final Filing Date: 4/12/2026
Who May Apply
Individuals who are currently in the classification, eligible for lateral transfer, eligible for reinstatement, have list or LEAP eligibility, are in the process of obtaining list eligibility, or have SROA and/or Surplus eligibility (please attach your letter, if available). SROA and Surplus candidates are given priority; therefore, individuals with other eligibility may be considered in the event no SROA or Surplus candidates apply.
Applications will be screened and only the most qualified applicants will be selected to move forward in the selection process. Applicants must meet the Minimum Qualifications stated in the Classification Specification(s).
How To Apply
Complete Application Packages (including your Examination/Employment Application (STD 678\) and applicable or required documents) must be submitted to apply for this Job Posting. Application Packages may be submitted electronically through your CalCareer Account at www.CalCareers.ca.gov. When submitting your application in hard copy, a completed copy of the Application Package listing must be included. If you choose to not apply electronically, a hard copy application package may be submitted through an alternative method listed below:
Address for Mailing Application Packages
You may submit your application and any applicable or required documents to:
State Air Resources Board
Lisa Webb
Attn: Classification and Certification Unit
1001 I Street, 5th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
Address for Drop\-Off Application Packages
You may drop off your application and any applicable or required documents at:
State Air Resources Board
Lisa Webb
Classification and Certification Unit
1001 I Street, 5th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
Please drop\-off applications with Security Guard located at the front entrance.
08:00 AM \- 05:00 PM
Required Application Package Documents
The following items are required to be submitted with your application. Applicants who do not submit the required items timely may not be considered for this job:
- Current version of the State Examination/Employment Application STD Form 678 (when not applying electronically), or the Electronic State Employment Application through your Applicant Account at www.CalCareers.ca.gov. All Experience and Education relating to the Minimum Qualifications listed on the Classification Specification should be included to demonstrate how you meet the Minimum Qualifications for the position.
- Resume is optional. It may be included, but is not required.
- Degree and/or School Transcripts
- Statement of Qualifications \- Statement of Qualifications (SOQ) \- Please see the Special Requirements section of this job advertisement for detailed instructions for the SOQ submission.
Applicants requiring reasonable accommodations for the hiring interview process must request the necessary accommodations if scheduled for a hiring interview. The request should be made at the time of contact to schedule the interview. Questions regarding reasonable accommodations may be directed to the EEO contact listed on this job posting.
Desirable Qualifications
In addition to evaluating each candidate's relative ability, as demonstrated by quality and breadth of experience, the following factors will provide the basis for competitively evaluating each candidate:
We are looking for a self\-motivated, creative, and analytical individual with a demonstrated ability to work cooperatively with diverse stakeholders including other government agencies, academics, non\-governmental organizations, and the public. Knowledge of the following is critical for the position: land use and transportation planning, including State and local land use and housing policies and practice as well as regional transportation planning processes, policies, and implementing programs. Experience in one or more of the following areas is desired: Climate, Transportation, Land Use, and/or Housing Policy; Urban, City and Regional, and/or Environmental Planning; Urban and/or Sustainable Environmental Design.
The most competitive applicants will have demonstrated their ability to work productively leading and participating in project teams; anticipate program needs and initiate solutions; exercise sound judgment in complex, high\-visibility, and multi\-stakeholder policy contexts; communicate persuasively and gain cooperation from a wide variety of stakeholders; critically evaluate technical data and perform accurate analyses with available information; apply research to inform policy and technical recommendations; write concisely and effectively in everyday language; generate high\-quality products in short timeframes; and maintain a positive, can\-do attitude in a variety of work situations.
Benefits
- Nearby (third\-party) parking
- Convenient to public transportation
- Gym
- Daycare facility (third\-party)
Contact Information
The Hiring Unit Contact is available to answer questions regarding the position or application process.
Department Website: http://www.arb.ca.gov
Hiring Unit Contact:
Lezlie Kimura Szeto
(279\) 208\-7841
lezlie.kimura@arb.ca.gov
Please direct requests for Reasonable Accommodations to the interview scheduler at the time the interview is being scheduled. You may direct any additional questions regarding Reasonable Accommodations or Equal Employment Opportunity for this position(s) to the Department's EEO Office.
EEO Contact:
EEOP@arb.ca.gov
(000\) \-
EEOP@arb.ca.gov
California Relay Service: 1\-800\-735\-2929 (TTY), 1\-800\-735\-2922 (Voice) TTY is a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf, and is reachable only from phones equipped with a TTY Device.
Experience and Education
For experience/education to qualify during the application screening process and to ensure that minimum qualifications can be determined, applicants should include all employment history on the Employment Application (STD 678\), including detailed job descriptions, hours worked per week, and start/end dates (MM/DD/YYYY). Application packages without this information may experience delayed processing times, and your eligibility for this position may be impacted.
If you are using education to meet the minimum qualifications for this position, you must submit a copy of your transcript or diploma. Applicants who completed their education outside the United States (with foreign degrees/transcripts) must obtain and submit verification of the United States course/degree equivalency.
Foreign education credential evaluation services can be found at https://www.naces.org
Failure to submit all the required documentation will result in an incomplete application and disqualification from consideration for this position.
Address for Mailing or Drop\-Off Application Packages
NOTE: Applicants must not include Social Security Numbers, LEAP status information or paperwork, Equal Employment Opportunity information, exam result notices or scores, or medical or criminal history information on any document within their application package.
You may submit your application and any applicable or required documents to the following:
California Environmental Protection Agency/State Air Resources Board
Attn: Human Resources Branch/ Classification \& Certification unit, JC\#512724
1001 I Street, 5th Floor/P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA 95814
Drop\-off applications must be received, and date stamped by 5:00 PM on the final filing date. The drop\-off location is non\-operational on weekends and holidays.
After dropping off the application, please email lisa.webb@arb.ca.gov and mention the JC number in the subject line. Your email will serve as a time stamp that a document was dropped off before the final filing date.
Equal Opportunity Employer
The State of California is an equal opportunity employer to all, regardless of age, ancestry, color, disability (mental and physical), exercising the right to family care and medical leave, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, political affiliation, race, religious creed, sex (includes pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and related medical conditions), and sexual orientation.
It is an objective of the State of California to achieve a drug\-free work place. Any applicant for state employment will be expected to behave in accordance with this objective because the use of illegal drugs is inconsistent with the law of the State, the rules governing Civil Service, and the special trust placed in public servants.
Salary Context
This $126K-$158K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $100K across 15465 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 26,159 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 91% of the market. At California State Personnel Board, 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 $166,983 based on 13,781 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($142K) sits 15% below the category median. Disclosed range: $126K to $158K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Architect ($292,900). By seniority level: Entry: $76,880; Mid: $131,300; Senior: $227,400; Director: $244,288; VP: $234,620.
California State Personnel Board AI Hiring
California State Personnel Board has 4 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in CA, US. Compensation range: $63K - $158K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 7% (1,863 positions) offer remote work, while 24,200 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: Los Angeles (1,695 roles, $178,000 median); New York (1,670 roles, $200,000 median); San Francisco (1,059 roles, $244,000 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 26,159 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 2,416 entry-level, 16,247 mid-level, 5,153 senior, and 2,343 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 7% of the market (1,863 positions). The remaining 24,200 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 28 roles); AI Architect ($292,900 median, 108 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 19 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 26,159 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (23,752), AI Software Engineer (598), AI Product Manager (594). 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 (2,416) are outnumbered by mid-level (16,247) and senior (5,153) 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 2,343 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 7% of all AI roles (1,863 positions), with 24,200 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 $184,000. Top-quartile roles start at $244,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $309,400. 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 Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $122,200. 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: Rag (16,749 postings), Aws (8,932 postings), Rust (7,660 postings), Python (3,815 postings), Azure (2,678 postings), Gcp (2,247 postings), Prompt Engineering (1,469 postings), Openai (1,269 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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