Machine Learning Architect II

$143K - $169K Atlanta, GA, US Mid Level AI/ML Engineer

Interested in this AI/ML Engineer role at The Coca-Cola Company?

Apply Now →

Skills & Technologies

AwsAzureDockerDrift AiGcpKubernetesPythonSagemakerVertex Ai

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

The Coca\-Cola Company’s Technology organization is in the midst of a digital transformation that allows our employees to use world class technology to connect our products to our customers all over the world. This journey is a very exciting time for Coca\-Cola and our employees are big contributors to our Success and Growth. Our large scale and complex environment offers an incredible opportunity to address challenges, enable innovative solutions to make a difference for our customers.

In this position, you will embark on a journey of leveraging vast amounts of data to transform it into actionable insights. You will aid in the development of analytics models and work under the guidance of seasoned data science professionals to drive decision\-making and strategy across the organization. This is an exciting opportunity to grow in your career in data science and analytics within a supportive and innovative environment.

What You’ll Do for Us:

  • Model Deployment \& Operationalization: Partner with data science teams to transition machine learning models from experimentation to production environments, packaging models into robust Docker containers for scalable and reproducible deployments.
  • Pipeline Automation: Build and maintain automated CI/CD pipelines for machine learning workflows (e.g., model training, evaluation, and deployment) utilizing tools like GitHub Actions. Leverage Azure Container Registry to securely manage container images and deploy scalable workloads to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or Azure Container Instances (ACS).
  • Utilize Azure Machine Learning and Microsoft Fabric Data Science to manage the ML lifecycle. Adapt prior experience from other cloud platforms to effectively navigate and optimize our current stack.
  • Monitoring \& Maintenance: Implement monitoring solutions to track model performance, data drift, and system health in production. Ensure comprehensive logging and observability for containerized model endpoints running on Kubernetes clusters. Troubleshoot and resolve operational issues as they arise.
  • Data Integration: Collaborate with data engineering teams to ensure clean, reliable data pipelines (such as Medallion architectures) seamlessly feed into machine learning models.
  • Engineering Best Practices: Write clean, modular, and testable code (primarily in Python) while adhering to version control best practices using Git.
  • Mentor, guide, and develop junior/aspiring MLOps Engineer across the organization.
  • Lead continuous career development and drive engineering excellence through performance reviews.

Qualifications \& Requirements:

  • 6\+ years of professional experience (or equivalent strong academic/internship experience) in MLOps, Data Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related field.
  • 3\+ years of experience managing and scaling high\-performing MLOps or data platform teams, with a focus on career development, performance management, and technical mentorship.
  • Cloud ML Platforms: Hands\-on experience with at least one major cloud ML platform. While Azure ML and Microsoft Fabric are preferred, experience with AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, or similar platforms is highly acceptable.
  • Programming: Strong proficiency in Python for scripting, automation, and model deployment.
  • DevOps \& Containerization: Familiarity with version control (Git), building CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps), and containerization ecosystems (Docker, Azure Container Registry, Kubernetes/AKS/ACS).
  • Foundational Knowledge: A solid understanding of the machine learning lifecycle, containerized microservices architectures, and fundamental software engineering principles.

Functional

Practical experience with as many of the following as possible:

  • Handles multiple competing priorities in a fast\-paced, deadline\-driven environment
  • Strong attention to details and excellent problem\-solving skills
  • Ability to work in a collaborative team environment
  • Highly innovative, adaptable, and self\-directed
  • Results\-oriented with a delivery focus
  • Presentation skills: Ability to communicate technical topics to business audience.
  • Be able to collaborate across other levels of the organization
  • Team player who can lead a discussion to defined outcomes
  • Effective Communication
  • Pursuing Innovation

What We Can Do for You:

  • Innovation \& Technology: The ability to work with an award\-winning team that is on the cutting edge of innovation.
  • Exposure to World Class Leaders: Availability to global technology leaders that will expand your network and exposure you to emerging technologies and techniques.
  • Agile Work Environment: We embrace agile with management that believes in removing barriers, so you are empowered to experiment, iterate and innovate.

Our Purpose and Growth Culture:

We are taking deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in our company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. We act with a growth mindset, take an expansive approach to what’s possible and believe in continuous learning to improve our business and ourselves. We focus on four key behaviors – curious, empowered, inclusive and agile – and value how we work as much as what we achieve. We believe that our culture is one of the reasons our company continues to thrive after 130\+ years. Visit Our Purpose and Vision to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca\-Cola.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. When we collect your personal information as part of a job application or offer of employment, we do so in accordance with industry standards and best practices and in compliance with applicable privacy laws.

The Coca\-Cola Company will not offer sponsorship for employment status (including, but not limited to, H1\-B visa status and other employment\-based nonimmigrant visas) for this position. Accordingly, all applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full\-time basis and must not require The Coca\-Cola Company's sponsorship to continue to work legally in the United States.Pay Range:

United States of America: 143,400 USD \- 169,300 USD*Base pay offered may vary depending on geography, job\-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position, is offered.*

Annual Incentive Reference Value Percentage:

15*Annual Incentive reference value is a market\-based competitive value for your role. It falls in the middle of the range for your role, indicating performance at target.*

Location(s):

United States of AmericaCity/Cities:

AtlantaTravel Required:

00% \- 25%Relocation Provided:

YesJob Posting End Date:

August 14, 2026Our Purpose and Growth Culture:

We are taking deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in our company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. We act with a growth mindset, take an expansive approach to what’s possible and believe in continuous learning to improve our business and ourselves. We focus on four key behaviors – curious, empowered, inclusive and agile – and value how we work as much as what we achieve. We believe that our culture is one of the reasons our company continues to thrive after 130\+ years. Visit Our Purpose and Vision to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca\-Cola.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. When we collect your personal information as part of a job application or offer of employment, we do so in accordance with industry standards and best practices and in compliance with applicable privacy laws.

Pay Range:United States of America: 0 USD \- 0 USD

Base pay offered may vary depending on geography, job\-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position, is offered.

Annual Incentive Reference Value Percentage:15

Annual Incentive reference value is a market\-based competitive value for your role. It falls in the middle of the range for your role, indicating performance at target.

Long\-term Incentive Reference Value Percentage:0 \- 20

Long\-term Incentive reference value is a market\-based competitive value for your role.

Salary Context

This $143K-$169K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Title Machine Learning Architect II
Location Atlanta, GA, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $143K - $169K
Remote No

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 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At The Coca-Cola 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 Required

Aws (28% of roles) Azure (22% of roles) Docker (10% of roles) Drift Ai (2% of roles) Gcp (15% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles) Python (52% of roles) Sagemaker (4% of roles) Vertex Ai (4% of roles)

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 $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($156K) sits 27% below the category median. Disclosed range: $143K to $169K.

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.

The Coca-Cola Company AI Hiring

The Coca-Cola Company has 11 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Data Scientist, AI/ML Engineer. Based in Atlanta, GA, US. Compensation range: $115K - $247K.

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 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 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).

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 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 6,420 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $214,900. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
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.
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.
The Coca-Cola Company 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 AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence

Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.