Executive Director Machine Learning Engineer-MLOps

$223K - $325K Palo Alto, CA, US Mid Level MLOps Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

AwsDockerKubernetesPython

About This Role

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JOB DESCRIPTION

We are looking for a Senior MLOps engineer to work closely with Data Scientists to build and deploy ML models on a modern MLOps stack.

As an Executive Director Machine Learning Engineer on the Recommendation Engine team, you'll implement fine\-tuning and reinforcement learning algorithms on large compute clusters, build and run real\-time and batch model serving systems, hyper\-parameter tuning at scale, model monitoring, production validation and other activities vital for model development, testing and deployment in a well\-managed, controlled environment.

Our product, Personalization and Insights, builds and supports high throughput, low latency applications which leverage state of the art machine learning architectures, and which are deployed in AWS. These applications power personalized experiences across Chase Consumer \& Community Banking channels, to help weave a user experience that includes traditional banking services with other services in the Travel, Merchant Offer Shopping, and Dining spaces.

Job responsibilities

  • Build, deploy, and maintain robust pipelines for distributed training on GPU\-enabled clusters to support scalable machine learning workflows.
  • Develop and manage high\-volume real\-time and batch inference systems, ensuring optimal performance and reliability.
  • Implement quantization techniques and deploy open\-weight large language models (LLMs) on modern serving stacks such as vLLM on Ray to maximize efficiency and resource utilization.
  • Oversee the management and optimization of vector databases to support advanced AI and machine learning applications.
  • Establish and maintain comprehensive monitoring and observability pipelines to ensure system health, performance, and rapid issue resolution.
  • Collaborate with cross\-functional teams to integrate new technologies and continuously improve existing infrastructure.
  • Partner with product, architecture, and other engineering teams to define scalable and performant technical solutions.

Required qualifications, capabilities, and skills

  • BS in Computer Science or related Engineering field with 10\+ years of experience Or MS degree in Computer Science or related Engineering field with 6\+ years experience.
  • Solid knowledge and extensive experience in Python or in cloud computing and AWS.
  • Understanding of quantization techniques such as PTQ, AWQ etc. used to quantize LLMs for accelerating inference on specific GPU architectures
  • Solid understanding of Transformer models and challenges involved in serving large transformer\-based models
  • Solid understanding of ML training, especially latest reinforcement learning algorithms such as GRPO and DAPO
  • Experience in systems engineering fundamentals: caching, CUDA, autoscaling, high throughput, low latency, x\-region resilient applications
  • Deep knowledge and passion for data science fundamentals, training and deploying models
  • Experience in monitoring and observability tools to monitor model input/output and features stats
  • Solid grounding in engineering fundamentals and analytical mindset

Preferred qualifications, capabilities, and skills

  • Experience with recommendation and personalization systems is a plus.
  • CUDA experience is a big plus
  • Solid fundamentals and experience in containers (docker ecosystem), container orchestration systems \[Kubernetes, ECS]
  • Experience with Ray, vLLM, RL libraries such as verl/trl
  • Good knowledge of Databases

(i) This position is subject to Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. As such, an employment offer for this position is contingent on JPMorganChase's review of criminal conviction history, including pretrial diversions or program entries.

ABOUT US

Chase is a leading financial services firm, helping nearly half of America's households and small businesses achieve their financial goals through a broad range of financial products. Our mission is to create engaged, lifelong relationships and put our customers at the heart of everything we do. We also help small businesses, nonprofits and cities grow, delivering solutions to solve all their financial needs.

We offer a competitive total rewards package including base salary determined based on the role, experience, skill set and location. Those in eligible roles may receive commission\-based pay and/or discretionary incentive compensation, paid in the form of cash and/or forfeitable equity, awarded in recognition of individual achievements and contributions. We also offer a range of benefits and programs to meet employee needs, based on eligibility. These benefits include comprehensive health care coverage, on\-site health and wellness centers, a retirement savings plan, backup childcare, tuition reimbursement, mental health support, financial coaching and more. Additional details about total compensation and benefits will be provided during the hiring process.

We recognize that our people are our strength and the diverse talents they bring to our global workforce are directly linked to our success. We are an equal opportunity employer and place a high value on diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute, including race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or veteran status, pregnancy or disability, or any other basis protected under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for applicants' and employees' religious practices and beliefs, as well as mental health or physical disability needs. Visit our FAQs for more information about requesting an accommodation.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veterans

ABOUT THE TEAM

Our Consumer \& Community Banking division serves our Chase customers through a range of financial services, including personal banking, credit cards, mortgages, auto financing, investment advice, small business loans and payment processing. We're proud to lead the U.S. in credit card sales and deposit growth and have the most\-used digital solutions – all while ranking first in customer satisfaction.

The CCB Data \& Analytics team responsibly leverages data across Chase to build competitive advantages for the businesses while providing value and protection for customers. The team encompasses a variety of disciplines from data governance and strategy to reporting, data science and machine learning. We have a strong partnership with Technology, which provides cutting edge data and analytics infrastructure. The team powers Chase with insights to create the best customer and business outcomes.

Salary Context

This $223K-$325K range is above the 75th percentile for MLOps Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $168K across 34 roles with salary data).

View full MLOps Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Company JPMorganChase
Title Executive Director Machine Learning Engineer-MLOps
Location Palo Alto, CA, US
Category MLOps Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $223K - $325K
Remote No

About This Role

MLOps Engineers build the infrastructure that keeps ML models running in production. They own CI/CD pipelines for model deployment, monitoring for data drift and model degradation, and the tooling that lets data scientists ship faster. If ML Engineers build the models, MLOps Engineers build the roads those models travel on.

The job is fundamentally about reliability and velocity. Data scientists want to iterate fast. Product teams want stable predictions. Your job is to make both happen simultaneously. That means building deployment pipelines that catch regressions before they hit production, monitoring systems that alert on data drift before it degrades model performance, and self-service tooling that lets data scientists deploy without filing a ticket.

Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, MLOps Engineer positions make up 1% of the market. At JPMorganChase, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week involves: debugging a model deployment that's serving stale predictions, building a new monitoring dashboard for a feature team, writing Terraform for GPU-enabled inference clusters, reviewing pull requests for the ML platform's CI/CD pipeline, and meeting with data scientists to understand their pain points. You're the bridge between ML and infrastructure.

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

Skills Required

Aws (28% of roles) Docker (10% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles) Python (52% of roles)

Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud infrastructure are baseline. Most roles want experience with ML-specific tooling: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases, or similar. Strong DevOps fundamentals matter more than ML theory. You need to understand model serving (TorchServe, Triton, vLLM), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi).

GPU infrastructure knowledge is increasingly valuable as LLM inference becomes a major cost center. Understanding GPU scheduling, multi-node training setups, and inference optimization (quantization, batching, caching) puts you in the top tier. Experience with model registries and feature stores rounds out the profile.

Good MLOps postings specify their ML stack, infrastructure scale, and the problems they're solving (deployment velocity, cost optimization, monitoring gaps). Red flag: companies that want MLOps but don't have any models in production yet. You'll end up doing general DevOps instead.

Compensation Benchmarks

MLOps Engineer roles pay a median of $203,000 based on 85 positions with disclosed compensation. Director-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $274,554. This role's midpoint ($274K) sits 35% above the category median. Disclosed range: $223K to $325K.

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.

JPMorganChase AI Hiring

JPMorganChase has 141 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI Software Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, Data Scientist, AI Product Manager. Positions span Jersey City, NJ, US, New York, NY, US, Seattle, WA, US. Compensation range: $120K - $450K.

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 MLOps Engineer roles include DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer, Data Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Platform Lead, Infrastructure Architect, Engineering Manager.

DevOps engineers with ML curiosity have the shortest path. You already understand deployment, monitoring, and infrastructure. Add ML-specific knowledge (model serving, data pipelines, experiment tracking) and you're competitive. The career ceiling is high: ML Platform Lead roles at top companies pay well because the infrastructure complexity is enormous.

What to Expect in Interviews

Interviews emphasize infrastructure and reliability. Expect questions about CI/CD for ML models, monitoring for data drift, and how you'd design a model serving platform that handles 10K requests per second. Coding rounds focus on Python and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Helm). Be ready to discuss tradeoffs between different model serving frameworks and how you'd handle rollback when a new model degrades performance.

When evaluating opportunities: Good MLOps postings specify their ML stack, infrastructure scale, and the problems they're solving (deployment velocity, cost optimization, monitoring gaps). Red flag: companies that want MLOps but don't have any models in production yet. You'll end up doing general DevOps instead.

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).

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

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

Based on 85 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for MLOps Engineer positions is $203,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud infrastructure are baseline. Most roles want experience with ML-specific tooling: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases, or similar. Strong DevOps fundamentals matter more than ML theory. You need to understand model serving (TorchServe, Triton, vLLM), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi).
About 15% of the 4,317 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
JPMorganChase is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from MLOps Engineer positions include ML Platform Lead, Infrastructure Architect, Engineering Manager. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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