Staff Machine Learning Engineer

 

Job Title:  Senior Machine Learning  Engineer
Location-Type: Hybrid or Remote 
Start Date Is: ASAP
Duration: 6-Month Contract-to-Hire

Description

Whisker is redefining what it means to live with cats—designing intelligent systems that remove friction, elevate the everyday, and celebrate the quiet brilliance of feline companionship. Today, Litter-Robot leads the category. Tomorrow, an entire ecosystem that expands what's possible for cats and the people who love them. We believe the future is feline. And we're imagining that future today.

Our team of 700 passionate pet people thrives on collaboration, innovation, and the occasional office cameo from a four-legged friend.

What You'll Do :

The Staff Machine Learning Engineer will lead the design, development, and deployment of production-grade AI and machine learning models, owning the end-to-end lifecycle from data ingestion and feature engineering through training, evaluation, inference, and continuous improvement in production. This role is responsible for defining scalable, secure, and high-performance AI architectures, including MLOps, automated CI/CD, model monitoring, and governance to ensure reliable real-world impact. The Staff Machine Learning Engineer will provide deep technical leadership and mentorship to engineering and data science teams, setting standards and best practices for building, operating, and scaling AI-powered systems across the organization.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

This list of duties and responsibilities is not all-inclusive and may be expanded to include other duties and responsibilities as deemed necessary.

• Leads the end-to-end architecture of production AI systems, including data pipelines, feature engineering, model training, evaluation, deployment, and inference, ensuring scalability, performance, and alignment with Whisker's business objectives
• Builds and ships AI models, contributing hands-on code across data preparation, model development, training workflows, and inference services, setting a high bar for production-quality AI engineering
• Partners closely with product, data, and engineering leaders to translate business and customer needs into applied AI solutions, balancing model accuracy, latency, cost, and operational reliability
• Provides technical leadership and mentorship across AI, data science, and software engineering teams, establishing best practices for model development, MLOps, testing, deployment, and ongoing model maintenance
• Evaluates, prototypes, and recommends emerging AI and ML technologies, frameworks, and tooling that accelerate model development, improve production robustness, and advance Whisker's AI capabilities
• Ensures the integrity, security, and reliability of AI systems, including data governance, model versioning, monitoring, drift detection, and responsible AI practices throughout the lifecycle
• Owns the full AI development lifecycle, from problem framing and experimentation through production deployment, monitoring, iteration, and continuous improvement of AI-powered products
• Conducts regular code reviews and provides constructive feedback to ensure code quality
• Designs, develop, lead implementation of robust, scalable security solutions across multiple platforms
• Will perform additional responsibilities when required
  
  
  
  

Requirements

What You'll Bring :

Requirements & Qualifications:

• Bachelor's, Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
• 6 years of proven experience as a software architect, demonstrating successful design, release and delivery of complex, scalable systems.
• Technical expertise in the following areas:
  • 5 years of experience with Amazon S3
  • 5 years of experience with DynamoDB
  • 4 years of experience with AWS Lambda
  • 3 years of experience with IoT Core
  • 2 years of experience with Timestream
• In-depth understanding of software design principles, patterns, and best practices
• Expertise in Java, Python, or C , particularly for complex, function-oriented software that interfaces with IoT devices
• Experience supporting medium to large-scale, highly available, service-oriented, distributed production systems
• Proficiency with object-oriented programming concepts, patterns and problem decomposition
• Experience with cloud platforms, microservices architecture, and a strong grasp of system integration.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to address technical challenges in a dynamic environment.
• Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Proficient in using architecture modeling and design tools.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Project management skills with a track record of successfully driving projects to completion.
• A passion for staying updated on industry trends and continuously improving technical expertise.
• Maintains confidentiality of proprietary information
• Ability to maintain a professional atmosphere in a fast-paced environment with numerous interactions and interruptions
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with Team Members and colleagues
• Comfortable with office pets (cats, dogs)
  
  

Not Required but Nice to Have!

• Experience with CloudWatch, AppSync, Relational Databases, Kinesis Stream, CloudTrail, API Gateway, Cognito or VPC
  
  
  
  

Benefits & Perks:

Join a tenacious, inventive company that empowers team members to chart their own path, lead by grounding decisions in the "why”, and has a strong sense of empathy and openness to new perspectives. Be a part of exciting growth, work with incredible people, and create tomorrow's pet products—plus a whole lot of extras. You will also be provided with:

• Premium Medical/Dental/Vision insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Whisker Parents Program
• 1 day "pawternity " leave for new pet adoption
• Pet Insurance Discount
• 401K match
• Flexible spending accounts
• Company-paid short-term disability and life insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Generous paid time off
• 14 Paid Holidays
• Top of the line equipment
• Pet-friendly office
• Whisker products and swag
• Continuing education Support
• On-site gym with Peloton
• Referral program