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Technology New York
The D. E. Shaw group seeks a program manager to join its Generative AI Tech Services team. This team develops and operates a wide-ranging suite of generative-AI products and workstreams, serving as a centralized platform to drive innovation and efficiency across the firm. This role provides an opportunity to bring structure and delivery discipline to a rapidly expanding, cross-site team in an engaging and collegial environment.
What you’ll do day-to-day
- Lead sprint planning and manage delivery throughput across a portfolio of generative-AI products and workstreams.
- Map and oversee cross-functional dependencies, set timelines, and drive accountability to ensure progress across the team.
- Support prioritization and resource allocation in a dynamic environment with multiple stakeholders and competing initiatives.
- Coordinate closely with the firm's India-based team and maintain strong partnership with a program manager counterpart to align cross-site operations.
- Handle tactical and operational requests, such as managing support tickets with technology providers, and own recurring stakeholder reporting for both technical and non-technical audiences.
What we’re looking for
- A bachelor’s degree or higher; and five to twelve years of program or project management experience, including managing a portfolio of concurrent initiatives (as opposed to owning only one or two large projects).
- Demonstrated track record of execution, with a focus on delivering results and driving initiatives to completion.
- Excellent written communication skills, with the ability to produce clear reports for mixed technical and non-technical audiences.
- Ability to introduce and promote effective program management practices and operate with minimal ramp-up time.
- Comfort coordinating across sites and time zones, defining goals, opening communication channels, and removing blockers; technical fluency or a degree in a related discipline is a plus but not required
- The expected annual base salary for this position is $150,000 to $220,000. Our compensation and benefits package includes variable compensation in the form of a year-end bonus, guaranteed in the first year of hire, and benefits including medical and prescription drug coverage, 401(k) contribution matching, wellness reimbursement, family building benefits, and a charitable gift match program.
The D. E. Shaw group is an equal opportunity employer.
The applicable annual base salary or hourly rate paid to a successful applicant will be determined based on multiple factors, including without limitation the nature and extent of prior experience and educational background.
European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), California, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Shanghai candidates should refer to the corresponding linked privacy notice.
The D. E. Shaw group may collect, use, hold, transfer, and process candidates’ resumes and associated information (including personal information contained therein) for purposes reasonably related to their application, including without limitation: review and management of employment applications and supporting materials; administration and management of offers to and communication with candidates; and administration, management, and improvement of the recruiting operations of the D. E. Shaw group; and/or where reasonably required in connection with a proposed sale, spin-out, reorganization, or outsourcing of all or some of the business of the D. E. Shaw group. The D. E. Shaw group will not use such information for purposes unrelated to the foregoing, such as direct marketing of third-party products to candidates, without candidate consent. As used herein, the term “personal information” is meant to broadly describe information identifying or relating to a specific individual; it is intended to encompass “personal data,” “sensitive personal data,” and “personally identifiable information” and similar terms, as those terms are defined by law in the jurisdictions in which the D. E. Shaw group operates.
The D. E. Shaw group may transfer such personal information within and outside the country and jurisdiction of the locations where the D. E. Shaw group maintains offices, to other D. E. Shaw group affiliates, to government and regulatory authorities, and to third parties which provide or may provide support and/or services to the D. E. Shaw group and for the purposes set forth above. The persons who may have access to this personal information are other employees of the D. E. Shaw group, in connection with the performance of their duties of employment, and the other parties listed above, in connection with the business of the D. E. Shaw group. (Of course, candidates will be considered for employment opportunities only in those countries in which they express interest.)
The D. E. Shaw group will use reasonable care to maintain the confidentiality of personal information (including appropriate technical measures against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, such information) and will retain such data as required by applicable law or regulation. Candidates have the right to request access to, and correction of, their personal information in accordance with applicable law; any such request should be submitted to [email protected]. Candidates who have submitted a resume to the D. E. Shaw group and do not wish to proceed with their applications should email [email protected]. Personal information of candidates who have been the subject of background checks may have been transferred in accordance with applicable regulations, and any concerns with such transfers should be submitted to [email protected].
The D. E. Shaw group may retain candidates’ information for prospective recruiting activities, including sourcing candidates for employment opportunities and for organizing events with prospective candidates, in accordance with our internal data retention procedures. Candidates who do not agree to such future use should email [email protected].
Salary Context
This $150K-$220K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $176K across 1540 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 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At D. E. Shaw & Co. - Investment Firm, 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 in Demand for This Role
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 $212,000 based on 11,857 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. This role's midpoint ($185K) sits 13% below the category median. Disclosed range: $150K to $220K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.
D. E. Shaw & Co. - Investment Firm AI Hiring
D. E. Shaw & Co. - Investment Firm has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Product Manager. Based in New York, NY, US. Compensation range: $220K - $350K.
Location Context
AI roles in New York pay a median of $221,000 across 2,878 tracked positions. That's 4% above the national 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 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 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 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). 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 (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) 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 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 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 $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. 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 Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. 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 (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 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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