Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at Talking Rain Beverage Company?
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WHO WE ARE
We’re Talking Rain Beverage Company, we create better-for-you beverages featuring great flavors and colors from natural sources. We live life in full flavor and believe the world should too. We create connections with every sip of our iconic Sparkling Ice, Sparkling Ice Caffeine, Sparkling Ice Energy, and Popwell.
When it comes to success, we know we’re only as strong as our team. That's why we're an equal-opportunity employer. We value diversity and practice inclusivity, hiring great people who enhance our company.
Our Rain Makers are our most important asset. That’s why we invest in them with benefits and development opportunitiesthat reflect just how much we value them.
Request for Independent Packaging Design Services — AI-Assisted Concept Development
WHO WE ARE
We’re Talking Rain, and we’re so much more than water. We build flavorful brands, like Sparkling Ice, Sparkling Ice +Caffeine, Talking Rain Waters and AQA pH waters. We're sparking joy with every sip!
We love innovating our packaging and meeting consumers where they are in their moments in life and this means we move quickly from idea to decision. We want one or more independent creative partners who can brainstorm label and packaging concepts live and use AI tools to produce fast visual iterations before anything goes to final design. The work is project-based and comes in bursts. Some months will be busy and others quiet. This fits freelancers who run their own business and want an ongoing client relationship alongside their other work.
Project Scope and Expected Outcomes
Talking Rain is seeking an independent packaging design contractor to deliver early-stage packaging concepts for discussion and decision-making. The contractor will determine the methods, workflow, and creative process used to produce the agreed deliverables, combining packaging design expertise with AI-enabled creative tools as appropriate.
Client contacts: Designated Talking Rain stakeholders will provide project context, consolidated feedback, and approval decisions.
Timing and availability: Work will be requested through individual project briefs or statements of work. The provider will propose the schedule and workflow needed to meet mutually agreed milestones. Any live working sessions, including sessions outside standard business hours, will be scheduled by mutual agreement based on project needs and the provider’s availability.
Work location: The provider may perform the services remotely from a location of its choosing, using its own workspace, equipment, and software. Any onsite attendance will be limited to mutually agreed project needs.
Fees and invoicing: Fees will be negotiated for each statement of work and may be structured by project, milestone, day, or hour depending on the assignment. The provider will submit invoices under the payment terms agreed in the applicable services agreement or statement of work and will be responsible for its ordinary business expenses unless a specific reimbursable expense is approved in writing.
- Develop initial packaging and label concept directions based on an agreed project brief and, when useful, participate in mutually scheduled ideation sessions with designated Talking Rain stakeholders.
- Use AI image and design tools to quickly produce concept mockups, label variations, flavor extensions, and limited-edition ideas.
- Revise concepts in response to consolidated client feedback within the turnaround times agreed for the applicable project or milestone.
- Deliver concept boards and rough mockups ready to hand off to our internal design team or agency for final production art
- Offer expert input on shelf impact, CPG category trends, and how packaging communicates to the consumer
- Provide any additional services only when mutually agreed in writing through a new project brief, statement of work, or scope change.
Independent Provider Profile
- 5+ years in CPG packaging design, brand design, or packaging innovation (beverage experience is a strong plus)
- Advanced, hands-on skill with AI creative tools such as Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT/DALL·E, Stable Diffusion, or similar, plus traditional tools like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
- A portfolio showing CPG packaging work and AI-assisted concept development
- Comfort working live and fast with senior executives, and the ability to take direction and generate options on the spot
- An established freelance, consulting, or design business that offers services to the market, maintains its own business registrations as applicable, and uses its own equipment and properly licensed software to perform the work.
- Ability to participate in mutually scheduled working sessions when a project requires real-time collaboration, including occasional evening or weekend sessions if accepted by both parties.
Engagement Terms
Any engagement will be governed by a separate written services agreement and one or more project-specific statements of work addressing deliverables, acceptance criteria, fees, payment terms, confidentiality, intellectual property, approved expenses, and timing. The provider will operate an independent business and retain control over the methods, means, sequence, work location, and personnel used to deliver the agreed results, subject to applicable law, brand requirements, confidentiality obligations, and the agreed acceptance criteria. No minimum volume or duration of work is promised. Contractor classification depends on the full facts and actual working relationship, not this document or the use of a 1099 form.
At Talking Rain...
We are Accountable for Results
We make clear commitments, follow through, and take responsibility for outcomes. We trust each other to do great work and support one another when things get tough.
We Innovate with Curiosity
Curiosity fuels everything we do, and innovation is core to who we are. This drives our competitive edge. Rain Makers ask questions, test ideas, and move with intention. We don’t wait for perfect. We try, learn, adjust, and grow.
We Embrace Change
Growth requires adaptability. We are resilient, agile, and energized by what’s next. Those who thrive at Talking Rain are excited by momentum, not intimidated by it.
We Are One Team
We’re better together, and our differences make us stronger. We’re all about diverse perspectives, real relationships, and authenticity at work. Ideas are welcome and encouraged. We compete externally and align internally, engaging the right people and ideas to move the business forward. Collaboration here is active, not passive. We commit. We deliver. Together.
WHAT WE OFFER
Nothing makes a great job even better than throwing in a few perks! All regular, full-time Rain Makers are equipped with everything they need to maintain their health and well-being. That means things like...
- Three Weeks of Vacation per calendar year. And that’s just to start! Spend some time with us, and you’ll accrue an additional week every few years, depending on your exempt status!
- FMLA qualifying Rain Makers receive six weeks of paid parental leave. Parents get to spend time at home bonding with their new addition (whether it arrives by birth, fostering, or adoption). For birth mothers, additional time is provided for medical leave. Depending on the state in which you reside, additional time may also be available for parents who do not require medical leave.
- Flexibility Stipend. For eligible Rain Makers, spend this extra monthly stipend as you wish, but know it’s intended to contribute to things like your phone, internet or other business uses while working remotely or needs outside of normal working hours.
- Relocation: Relocation Available (when available)
- Onsite and Hybrid Rain Makers: Get paid to carpool! Drive to work with another Rain Maker every week at least 2X a week and receive mileage reimbursement.
- 401k with Immediate Vesting. With matched contributions and investment customization, we'll help build a plan to reach your goals.
- Fitness Reimbursements. We're all about going the extra mile, so we provide reimbursements for community events and competitions like fun runs, triathlons, and cycling tours. + Rain Makers may also enjoy access to our on-site gym in Preston complete with a personal trainer 2 days per week.
- Medical/Dental/Vision. Not only do we offer it, but our plans are excellent and flexible to your needs. And one is even free for our Rain Makers!
- Vehicle Program – + Field Sales Specialist – Mileage is reimbursed at the IRS rate + Field Sales Managers and Market Managers – Company car or vehicle stipend included! + Regional Sales Managers and Sales Directors – We use the leader in vehicle reimbursement solutions, Motus. This program provides a monthly fixed and variable rate that adheres to IRS guidelines for the business use of personal vehicles.
Please note, eligibility for our full benefits package is based on an average of 30+ hours per week in regular (not temporary) positions.
Want to get to know us better? Click to learn about us and our careers. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Instagram, and Facebook.
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 Talking Rain Beverage Company, 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 $211,950 based on 13,048 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200.
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.
Talking Rain Beverage Company AI Hiring
Talking Rain Beverage Company has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in Remote, US.
Remote Work Context
Remote AI roles pay a median of $188,000 across 2,316 positions. About 6% of all AI roles offer remote work.
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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