Member of Technical Staff - ML Infra

San Francisco, CA, US Senior AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

ClaudeClayJaxOpenaiPythonPytorch

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

Job Description

As an ML Infrastructure Engineer at Trajectory, you will develop algorithms and own the innermost loop of our continual learning platform: the ML training stack!

Our team’s goal is to improve the training stack by 10× every month across GPU scale, model size, throughput, memory efficiency, caching, and latency.

This role spans training, inference, and kernels. Bring deep expertise in at least one area and curiosity across the stack. We’ll shape your initial ownership around your strengths and have high opportunities for you to work across the whole ML training platform.

What you will work on

Training

Build and optimize distributed training and RL infrastructure, including rollout execution, GPU scheduling, training parallelisms, checkpointing, and recovery. Improve training experimentation throughput and shorten research iteration cycles is a key part of training 100B+ parameter models here.

Inference

Optimize serving for production agents and training rollouts. Improve batching, scheduling, and KV-cache management while balancing latency, throughput, cost, and model quality.

Kernels and runtimes

Develop and optimize GPU kernels and runtimes using CUDA, Triton, or comparable tools. Improve memory use and execution efficiency, preserving numerical correctness and verifying gains in real workloads.

Across all three

Build reproducible benchmarks, observability, and automated research workflows that propose changes, run experiments, and validate improvements. Work with researchers to turn new algorithms into reliable systems across training, inference, and kernels.

Continual learning for ML infrastructure

We’re building one of the world’s best continual learning loops for ML infrastructure: agents that can propose optimizations, run experiments, measure gains, and learn from experiments across training, inference, and kernels. Come join us to accelerate continual learning’s inner loop!

Required Qualifications

  • Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, networking, storage, and failure recovery, with experience shipping demanding systems.
  • Required deep specialization in one of training infrastructure, inference systems, or GPU kernels, supported by systems built or measurable optimizations delivered.
  • Strong Python skills and languages relevant to your specialty, such as C++, CUDA, or Triton.
  • Understanding of PyTorch, JAX, or comparable framework internals, with strong profiling and debugging skills.
  • Ownership and clear communication: work closely with researchers and deliver measurable performance gains while preserving correctness and reliability.

We value demonstrated capability over credentials.

Preferred

Hands-on experience with training and RL stacks such as Miles, SkyRL, Prime Intellect’s verifiers, or comparable systems. Depending on your specialty, experience with vLLM, SGLang, collective communication, or ML compilers is also valuable.

About Trajectory

Trajectory is a research and product lab creating the platform for continual learning.

AI is the most capable software ever built. Every valuable correction and edit that happens in a product evaporates at the next session. A few teams have closed this gap by hand-coupling their models to their products: Composer, Claude Code, Windsurf SWE-1.

Trajectory is the first scalable approach for every company: our platform unlocks the signal already sitting in product use, so companies can continuously post-train large-scale agentic models that outperform the frontier.

Our research team comes from Deepmind, OpenAI, Meta Superintelligence, and product team from Figma, Apple, Stripe, and Windsurf. We're working with customers like Harvey, Rogo, Mercor, Decagon and Clay, and we've raised $60M from Sequoia, Conviction, Jeff Dean, and Fei Fei Li.

Role Details

Company Trajectory
Title Member of Technical Staff - ML Infra
Location San Francisco, CA, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Senior
Salary Not disclosed
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 9,079 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At Trajectory, 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

Claude (5% of roles) Clay Jax (1% of roles) Openai (3% of roles) Python (18% of roles) Pytorch (5% 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 $211,950 based on 13,048 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $229,300.

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.

Trajectory AI Hiring

Trajectory has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Based in San Francisco, CA, US.

Location Context

AI roles in San Francisco pay a median of $261,000 across 2,646 tracked positions. That's 23% above the national 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 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

Based on 13,048 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $211,950. 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 6% of the 9,079 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.
Trajectory 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.

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