Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at Pacific Gas and Electric?
Apply Now →Skills & Technologies
About This Role
Requisition ID # 174929
Job Category: Engineering / Science
Job Level: Manager/Principal
Business Unit: Technology & Security
Work Type: Hybrid
Job Location: Oakland
Department Summary
AI and Cloud Engineering Team is responsible for defining PG&E's enterprise AI and Cloud platform technical roadmap and strategic architecture standards, Agentic AI patterns, MCP integrations, AI Gateway services, knowledge platforms, and AI Foundation capabilities. The team provides design and engineering leadership for enterprise AI adoption. Builds AI foundational capabilities to support PG&E high impact use cases. Ensure AI solutions are scalable, secure, governed, and aligned with business and technology objectives. Position Summary
The AI Platforms Solution Architect (Principal) is responsible for leading the architecture and design of PG&E's AI ecosystem. This role defines architecture standards, reference patterns, and strategic technical direction for Agentic AI platforms, AI Foundation services, MCP integrations, AI Gateways, retrieval platforms, knowledge systems, and enterprise AI solutions. The position serves as the principal architecture authority for AI platforms and emerging AI technologies across PG&E.
This position is hybrid, working from the employee’s remote office and our Oakland headquarters, based on business need. The assigned work location will be within the PG&E Service Territory. Key Responsibilities Enterprise AI Platform Architecture & Strategy Work closely with AI Product Owners to define AI platform architecture, standards, reference architectures, and roadmaps. Establish enterprise AI foundational architecture and shared services technical strategy. Develop reusable architecture patterns for AI applications and services. Align AI platform investments with business strategy and enterprise priorities. Build prototypes for new Agentic patterns and explore open sourced solutions and frameworks Agentic AI & Autonomous Systems Architecture Architect multi-agent systems, autonomous workflows, and intelligent orchestration capabilities. Establish Agent-to-Agent (A2A) communication and Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) design standards. Design reusable Agentic AI architecture patterns and implementation frameworks. Guide enterprise adoption of Agentic AI solutions AI Gateway, MCP & Integration Architecture Establish architecture standards for AI Gateways and enterprise AI traffic management. Define MCP architecture and enterprise connectivity patterns. Architect secure integrations between AI platforms and enterprise systems. Develop reusable AI integration frameworks and reference solutions. AI Foundation Services, Knowledge Platforms & RAG Architect enterprise RAG, semantic search, vector database, and knowledge graph platforms. Define enterprise context management and retrieval architecture patterns. Est ablish reference architectures for enterprise knowledge services. Provide architectural leadership for AI-powered knowledge enablement solutions. Build evals for RAG and KnowledgeGraph systems and use in production for drift detection AI Governance, Security & Responsible AI Architecture Work closely with Cybersecurity teams to define AI security guardrails and platform architecture controls. Establish AI governance and Responsible AI architecture standards. Review solution architectures for security, privacy, compliance, and risk requirements. Partner with Cybersecurity and Enterprise Architecture teams to govern enterprise AI platforms. Design enterprise AI solutions that embed FinOps principles by default, optimizing model selection, infrastructure utilization, cost transparency, governance, and scalability to maximize business value while controlling operational spend. Technology Leadership & Enterprise Consulting Lead enterprise AI architecture reviews and strategic design sessions. Advise business and technology leaders on enabling AI use cases. Evaluate emerging AI technologies and platform capabilities. Mentor architects and engineering teams across the organization.
Background Qualifications Minimum Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence, or equivalent work experience in computer science, information technology, business administration, engineering, or other relevant field required 10 years of experience in Solution Architecture, Platform Architecture, Cloud Architecture, Enterprise Architecture or relevant IT experience. 7 years of architecture or software development experience 3 years of experience architecting AI, ML, Generative AI, Agentic AI solutions or Cloud. AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate or equivalent cloud certification Experience architecting cloud-native platforms within AWS and Azure environments. Experience designing enterprise integration architectures and API-based platforms. Experience leading architecture and design review processes. Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills. Experience working in an agile/scrum environment Desired Experience with Agentic AI platforms, AI Gateways, MCP, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, and enterprise AI services. Experience designing RAG, semantic search, vector database, and knowledge graph solutions. Experience defining enterprise AI operating models, governance frameworks, and Responsible AI controls. Experience with developer platforms, DevSecOps, AI observability, and GenAIOps. Experience in utility, critical infrastructure, or highly regulated environments. Experience developing enterprise-wide AI platform roadmaps and transformation strategies.
Compensation
PG&E provides the salary range that the company in good faith believes it might pay for this position at the time of the job posting. This compensation range is specific to the locality of the job. The actual salary paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, geographic location, and internal equity. Although we estimate the successful candidate hired into this role will be placed between the entry point and the middle of the range, the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to these factors. This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs.
A reasonable salary range is:
Bay Area Minimum: $155,000 Bay Area Midpoint: $210,000 Bay Area Maximum: $265,000
Salary Context
This $155K-$265K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 1356 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 8,943 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 75% of the market. At Pacific Gas and Electric, 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 $212,000 based on 11,866 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $228,700. Disclosed range: $155K to $265K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,380. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,148. The 90th percentile reaches $319,310. 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: $272,250; VP: $235,000.
Pacific Gas and Electric AI Hiring
Pacific Gas and Electric has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Data Scientist. Based in Oakland, CA, US. Compensation range: $194K - $265K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (521 positions) offer remote work, while 8,351 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,416 roles, $263,811 median); Los Angeles (1,340 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 8,943 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 175 entry-level, 4,132 mid-level, 3,268 senior, and 1,368 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (521 positions). The remaining 8,351 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,380. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,148. The 90th percentile reaches $319,310. 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 8,943 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,739), AI Product Manager (403), AI Software Engineer (402). 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 (175) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,132) and senior (3,268) 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 1,368 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (521 positions), with 8,351 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 $213,380. Top-quartile roles start at $264,148, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,310. 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 (1,422 postings), Aws (808 postings), Azure (638 postings), Rag (555 postings), Gcp (457 postings), Pytorch (433 postings), Claude (341 postings), Kubernetes (337 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
Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence
Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.