Lead MLOps Engineer Time Unicorn

Start2

Scale is a talent acquisition advisory and recruitment consultancy, built for tech companies during their startup and scaleup stages. We're proud to support numerous VC-backed startups across the globe in building world‑class, mission‑aligned teams.

A San Francisco‑headquartered tech company - a multiple‑time unicorn and recognised leader in enterprise AI infrastructure - is hiring a Lead MLOps Engineer to drive their production ML systems in Seattle.

You’ll be the technical lead for a team of 4 engineers focused on bridging the gap between data science prototypes and scalable, production‑grade AI services. This is a hands‑on leadership role – you’ll set technical direction, guide architecture decisions, and mentor the team while staying deep in the code.

• Lead the technical direction for converting research prototypes into production microservices
• Architect and maintain ML deployment infrastructure using Kubernetes, with exposure to tools like Ray and other AI orchestration frameworks
• Design and own MLOps CI/CD pipelines, zero‑downtime deployments, and model versioning strategies
• Drive performance optimisation, observability, and reliability for high‑scale inference workloads
• Mentor and guide a team of 4 engineers without formal management responsibilities
• Partner with data scientists to ensure research outputs are productionised with scalability in mind

• 8+ years software engineering experience, with significant focus on ML infrastructure and deployment
• Strong hands‑on experience with Kubernetes orchestration for ML workloads
• Proficiency in Python;
  Golang (Go) is a plus
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP preferred) and infrastructure‑as‑code
• Track record of taking ML models from prototype to production at scale
• Familiarity with AI deployment tooling (Ray, model serving frameworks, inference optimisation)
• Ability to lead technically without relying on positional authority

Seattle, WA – hybrid (1‑2 days/week in office).

Base salary $300k–$350k+, depending on experience.

Start2

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• Mid‑Senior level

• Full‑time

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