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About This Role
At Edwards Lifesciences, the Advanced Innovation & Technology (AI&T) teams harness imagination, courage, and resourcefulness to think beyond what’s currently possible and create solutions for patients many years into the future.
As part of AI&T, we're building an AI Center of Excellence (COE) focused on applying the power of AI to help patients live longer, healthier lives. As we expand our focus across the structural heart disease journey, AI is creating new opportunities to better understand and improve patient care. Our teams are applying AI to support clinical decision-making, identify patients earlier, develop digital solutions that complement our therapies, and help employees work more efficiently so they can focus on work that matters most. We're building an AI COE that collaborates across our innovation-focused teams throughout our global organization, helping accelerate innovation and build AI capabilities that create lasting impact for patients, clinicians, and employees. Together, we're committed to applying AI responsibly and thoughtfully while keeping patients at the center of everything we do.
This is a rare opportunity to help define how AI is applied across the structural heart disease journey while shaping the next generation of therapies, digital solutions, and patient experiences. We’ll give you the tools and resources you need to create groundbreaking innovations that shape the future of structural heart technology.
How you will make an impact:
This role is focused on developing advanced computer vision models for medical imaging applications across echocardiography, computed tomography, and other cardiovascular imaging modalities to support efforts across the enterprise, working at the intersection of medical image analysis and product delivery. You will lead the design, development, validation, and translation of deep learning (DL) models that support research, product development, and clinical decision-making. You will work closely with clinical, engineering, regulatory, and product teams to ensure that AI solutions meet the scientific rigor, performance expectations, and quality requirements necessary for deployment in regulated healthcare environments. The role requires independence and fast-paced, responsible development of DL models with the methodological rigor that is necessary to clear established evaluation and regulatory standards.
Key responsibilities
- Design, train, fine-tune, and validate deep learning computer vision models for medical imaging applications.
- Develop AI capabilities for image quality assessment, anatomical segmentation, landmark detection, geometric measurement, patient screening, procedural planning, and clinical decision support.
- Advance the development of in-house medical imaging foundation models through large-scale supervised, self-supervised, and transfer-learning approaches.
- Ensure models generalize across multiple imaging vendors and acquisition protocols, not only a single reference dataset.
- Partner closely with AI Evaluation, Quality, Regulatory Affairs, and Software Engineering teams to support verification, validation, risk assessment, and regulatory documentation activities.
- Rigorously evaluate models for systemic bias and stand up MLOps frameworks to monitor for performance drift or shift across different datasets.
- Drive research and experimentation to explore new AI and machine learning techniques, tools, and frameworks.
- Collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, product managers, and business leaders to define requirements and develop AI and machine learning solutions.
- Design, develop, and deploy scalable, efficient AI and machine learning models for prototypes and production use.
- Build end-to-end data pipelines for collecting, processing, and analyzing large-scale datasets.
- Optimize model performance to improve robustness, scalability, and efficiency.
- Participate in agile development processes, including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, prototype demonstrations, and milestone updates.
- Ensure code and model development are well-documented and follow engineering best practices.
- Perform other incidental duties as assigned.
What you’ll need (Required):
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related technical field, plus four years of AI / ML engineering experience, including successful collaboration with cross-functional teams on complex, enterprise-level, or novel system implementations.
- Proven experience designing, training, and validating deep learning computer vision models end to end.
- Strong experience with medical image analysis, including one or more of the following: segmentation, registration, landmark detection, image quality assessment, anatomical measurement, or disease classification.
What else we look for (Preferred):
- MS or PhD (preferred, but not required) in computer vision, biomedical engineering, or a related field, or equivalent industry depth.
- 5 to 10 years’ experience in computer vision or medical image analysis, with direct experience handling failure modes, including generalizability across different datasets, institutions, and vendors.
- Experience working with DICOM imaging data and large-scale imaging datasets.
- Proficiency with common machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision libraries, such as scikit-learn, NumPy, SciPy, PyTorch, TensorFlow/Keras, OpenCV, scikit-image, PIL, and torchvision.
- Strong knowledge of machine learning algorithms, statistics, and data structures.
- Experience with modern computer vision model architectures and learning paradigms, including vision transformers, convolutional neural networks such as U-Nets, diffusion models, and self-supervised learning approaches such as masked autoencoders and contrastive learning frameworks.
- Experience with cloud computing environments (particularly Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure), as well as remote computing and distributed computing.
- Proficiency in Python; experience with R, SQL, Julia, Rust, C++, or a similar language is also valued.
- Experience working with data platforms, including Snowflake, Databricks, and/or Palantir.
- Experience deploying machine learning solutions into production systems.
- Experience supporting the development of regulated software, Software as a Medical Device, or AI-enabled medical devices.
- Familiarity with design controls, verification and validation activities, risk management, and Good Machine Learning Practice (GMLP).
- Demonstrated technical leadership through publications, patents, open-source contributions, product launches, or industry recognition.
- Experience with version control systems such as Git and with agile development methodologies.
- Preferred experience collaborating with executive-level management, external vendors, and team members across regional and global offices.
- Effective communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent attention to detail and the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
- Ability to follow all company policies and requirements, including Environmental Health & Safety protocols, and to take appropriate measures to help prevent injuries and protect the environment within the scope of the role.
Aligning our overall business objectives with performance, we offer competitive salaries, performance-based incentives, and a wide variety of benefits programs to address the diverse individual needs of our employees and their families.
For California (CA), the base pay range for this position is $119,000 to $168,000 (highly experienced).
The pay for the successful candidate will depend on various factors (e.g., qualifications, education, prior experience). Applications will be accepted while this position is posted on our Careers website.
Edwards is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer including protected Veterans and individuals with disabilities.
Salary Context
This $119K-$168K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $178K across 1623 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 9,079 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At Edwards Lifesciences, 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 $211,950 based on 13,048 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $229,300. This role's midpoint ($143K) sits 32% below the category median. Disclosed range: $119K to $168K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($256,000) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $111,000; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $229,300; Director: $272,300; VP: $235,830.
Edwards Lifesciences AI Hiring
Edwards Lifesciences has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Irvine, CA, Irvine, CA, US. Compensation range: $168K - $186K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (531 positions) offer remote work, while 8,478 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (3,078 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,646 roles, $261,000 median); Los Angeles (1,486 roles, $210,000 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 9,079 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 4,384 mid-level, 3,343 senior, and 1,246 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (531 positions). The remaining 8,478 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($256,000 median, 66 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 457 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 55 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 9,079 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,862), AI Product Manager (453), AI Software Engineer (451). 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 (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,384) and senior (3,343) 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 1,246 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (531 positions), with 8,478 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 $213,000. Top-quartile roles start at $263,911, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. 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 $256,000 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 (1,649 postings), Aws (898 postings), Azure (723 postings), Rag (671 postings), Gcp (536 postings), Pytorch (434 postings), Claude (410 postings), Kubernetes (406 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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