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About This Role
Assistant Manager (Retail Operations \+ Marketing Support)
Location: Babylon, NY
Job Type: Full\-Time, Onsite
Compensation: $60,000\-$70,000 annually
https://www.joyfulshores.com/
About Joyful Shores
Joyful Shores is a new adult\-use cannabis dispensary opening in Babylon, Long Island. Our vision is a retail experience that feels relaxed, welcoming, and modern—where customers can move efficiently while still receiving thoughtful guidance from a knowledgeable team.
We are building a disciplined, systems\-driven retail operation with a strong focus on execution, team performance, and an elevated in\-store experience.
About the Role
We are seeking a highly reliable and operations\-focused Assistant Manager to help run the day\-to\-day execution of our store.
This is a retail\-first leadership role. You will spend the majority of your time leading shifts, managing the sales floor, supporting staff and customer experience, and owning opening and closing procedures.
In addition, you will support in\-store marketing and local marketing execution, helping bring the Joyful Shores brand to life inside the store and in the community.
This role is ideal for someone who comes from a high\-volume retail environment, is highly systems\-oriented, and has an interest in merchandising or marketing while remaining grounded in operations.
What You’ll Do
Store Operations \& Shift Leadership (Primary Focus)
- Open and close the store, including all operational and security procedures
- Lead shifts and ensure smooth execution on the sales floor
- Maintain store standards, cleanliness, and organization at all times
- Ensure compliance with New York cannabis regulations and company policies
- Troubleshoot operational issues in real time and escalate when needed
Team Leadership \& Staff Support
- Supervise and support retail staff during shifts
- Help onboard and train new employees on systems and procedures
- Provide real\-time coaching and reinforce performance expectations
- Assist with scheduling and shift coverage as needed
- Foster a positive, accountable, and team\-oriented work environment
Customer Experience
- Ensure a high\-quality, efficient, and welcoming customer experience
- Step in to resolve customer issues or escalations professionally
- Maintain strong flow and organization during high\-volume periods
- Lead by example on the sales floor
Systems, POS \& Cash Handling
- Operate and troubleshoot POS and store systems confidently
- Support accurate cash handling, drawer counts, and deposit preparation
- Monitor transactions and resolve discrepancies
- Ensure adherence to all checkout and compliance procedures
Marketing \& In\-Store Execution (Secondary Focus)
In\-Store Merchandising \& Presentation
- Maintain clean, organized, and intentional product displays
- Support promotional setups, product launches, and seasonal updates
- Ensure signage and store presentation align with brand standards
Content \& Marketing Support
- Capture basic in\-store content (photos and videos) for social and marketing use
- Assist in keeping menus, displays, and visuals current and accurate
- Support execution of marketing campaigns within the store
Local \& Community Marketing Support
- Assist with in\-store events, brand activations, and local partnerships
- Help execute grassroots marketing initiatives in the local community
- Represent the store in a professional and community\-oriented manner
QualificationsExperience
- 2–5 years of retail experience, preferably in high\-volume environments
- Previous leadership or key\-holder experience required
- Experience with opening and closing procedures and POS systems strongly preferred
Skills \& Competencies
- Strong operational discipline and attention to detail
- Comfortable leading teams in a fast\-paced retail environment
- Confident with retail systems, POS, and standard operating procedures
- Strong communication and problem\-solving skills
- Ability to stay organized and composed under pressure
Who You Are
- Dependable and accountable, with strong follow\-through
- A hands\-on leader who leads by example
- Systems\-oriented and process\-driven
- Comfortable taking ownership of store operations during your shift
- Interested in marketing and merchandising, but grounded in operations
- Motivated to grow into a General Manager role
Working Conditions
- Retail storefront environment
- Standing for extended periods
- Ability to lift up to 50 lbs
- Some evenings and weekends required
Candidates should be able to reliably commute to Babylon, NY, as this role requires consistent onsite presence.
Growth Opportunity
This role is a clear path to General Manager for high\-performing candidates.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Joyful Shores is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other protected classification under applicable federal, state, or local laws. All employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit, and business needs.
Pay: $60,000\.00 \- $70,000\.00 per year
Benefits:
- Paid time off
Application Question(s):
- Are you 21 years of age or older?
- Are you able to work onsite in West Babylon, NY and within a 30 minute commute to work?
- Tell us about a time you had to manage a busy retail floor or resolve an issue during a shift. What actions did you take?
- This role is based onsite in Babylon and includes some support for in\-store marketing (events, merchandising, content). Are you able to reliably commute, and are you interested in participating in these activities?
- Describe your experience opening and closing a retail store and leading shifts. What systems or processes were you responsible for?
Work Location: In person
Salary Context
This $60K-$70K range is below 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 Joyful Shores, 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. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $131,300. This role's midpoint ($65K) sits 61% below the category median. Disclosed range: $60K to $70K.
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.
Joyful Shores AI Hiring
Joyful Shores has 5 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in West Babylon, NY, US. Compensation range: $45K - $90K.
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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