Staff Software Engineer, ML Platform
$215,000 - $270,000/year
14 Oct 2025
San Francisco, CA, USA
Verified by Turrior
Content + Source + Freshness • 17 Dec 2025 • 95% confidence
90 / 100
Offer value
Exceptional offer due to market-leading salary and the opportunity to influence AI infrastructure in a fast-growing company.
- Highly competitive salary: $215,000–$270,000/year
- Influential role in AI infrastructure development
- Opportunity to lead and mentor other engineers
- Requires deep knowledge of MLOps
Pros
- Salary range at $215,000–$270,000/year is highly competitive
- Significant influence over platform architecture in AI
- Responsibilities to mentor and lead technical teams
Cons
- High expectations for performance and innovativeness
- Intensive technical knowledge required which may deter some
- Fast-paced challenges that require rapid adaptation
Who it's for
Senior / Lead • Remote / Hybrid options available
Good fit
- Experienced engineers specializing in machine learning platforms
- Tech leaders looking to influence architectural strategy
- Individuals comfortable in dynamic engineering environments
Not recommended for
- New graduates or inexperienced engineers
- Candidates unfamiliar with machine learning principles
- Those who prefer structured and predictable work environments
Motivation fit
Desire to build and refine AI infrastructureInterest in leading technical teams and projectsDrive to influence product capabilities at scale
Key skills
MLOps expertiseProgramming (Python, Java)Architectural design for AI servicesCross-team technical mentorship
Score: 90/100 AI verified analysis
About the job
Attentive® is the AI marketing platform for 1:1 personalization redefining the way brands and people connect. We’re the only marketing platform that combines powerful technology with human expertise to build authentic customer relationships. By unifying SMS, RCS, email, and push notifications, our AI-powered personalization engine delivers bespoke experiences that drive performance, revenue, and loyalty through real-time behavioral insights.
Recognized as the #1 provider in SMS Marketing by G2, Attentive partners with more than 8,000 customers across 70+ industries. Leading global brands like Crate and Barrel, Urban Outfitters, and Carter’s work with us to enable billions of interactions that power tens of billions in revenue for our customers.
With a distributed global workforce and employee hubs in New York City, San Francisco, London, and Sydney, Attentive’s team has been consistently recognized for its performance and culture. We’re proud to be included in Deloitte’s Fast 500 (four years running!), LinkedIn’s Top Startups, Forbes’ Cloud 100 (five years running!), and Inc.’s Best Workplaces.
About the Role
We’re seeking an accomplished Staff Software Engineer to join Attentive’s Machine Learning Platform team as a high-impact individual contributor focused on building the AI and ML infrastructure that powers our AI product suite. You’ll architect and build the foundational platform components that enable AI / ML engineers and data scientists to train, deploy, and serve models and agentic infrastructure with velocity, performance, and reliability at scale.
As a Staff-level IC, you’ll operate as a technical force multiplier, setting the technical direction for AI and ML infrastructure across Attentive’s AI organization. You’ll lead through influence and technical excellence, advocating for long-term architectural progress while balancing immediate platform needs. Your work will span strategic initiatives measured in quarters and years, focusing on high-leverage decisions that enable entire teams to ship AI and ML capabilities faster and more reliably.
Strategic Need
Attentive is revolutionizing the digital shopping experience across every channel through our AI product suite for half a billion subscribers. We’re looking for a high impact individual to take our platform from v1 to vNext and beyond — supporting the full spectrum of AI and ML workloads at massive scale. We support traditional models and deep learning today, and we are growing into reinforcement learning and agentic infrastructure quickly. This is a ground-floor opportunity to drive and influence the architectural roadmap for Attentive’s entire AI and ML ecosystem toward self-service workflows, real-time inference at scale, agentic capabilities, and robust model lifecycle management.
What You’ll Accomplish
- Setting Technical Direction - Architect ML platform strategy spanning data pipelines, training infrastructure, and serving layers using cutting-edge tooling like Ray, MLFlow, Metaflow, Argo, and Spark
- Uplevel and Innovate Core AI & ML Stack - Build and operate production-grade, low-latency ML serving layers with robust model lifecycle systems including champion/challenger testing, automated rollouts, versioning, and rollback capabilities
- Uplevel and Innovate Core AI & ML Stack - Define and drive Attentive’s agentic stack
- Technical Leadership - Provide ML infrastructure perspective in high-level discussions about Attentive’s AI strategy spanning multiple quarters and teams
- Technical Mentorship - Mentor platform and ML engineers, actively championing team members
- Being the “Glue” - Build universal interfaces, architectures, and patterns—like data access layers and prediction serving APIs—that bridge platform capabilities with product needs to streamline high-priority ML work across the organization
Your Expertise
- You have the experience to know what works, what doesn’t, and why in AI and ML systems
- 5+ years focused specifically on ML Platform/MLOps, with deep understanding of gold-standard practices and best-in-class tooling
- Proven track record of owning and building core components of ML platforms using tools like Spark, Ray, MLFlow, Kubeflow, or Metaflow
- You’ve built and operated a high-throughput agentic stack (MCP / data infrastructure, context store, orchestration, and prompt layer)
- Strong expertise in Python for both batch processing and online service frameworks
- Experience designing and operating online and offline inference systems, understanding the critical differences and tradeoffs between them
Sample Projects
- Design and implement inference pipelines with champion/challenger shadow testing and automated model promotion
- Lead and scale Attentive’s agentic stack from the ground up
- Scale real-time feature streaming to handle low-latency, high-volume reinforcement learning workloads
- Build a universal data access layer and prediction serving interface that powers ML capabilities across Attentive’s product suite
You'll get competitive perks and benefits, from health & wellness to equity, to help you bring your best self to work.
For US based applicants:
- The US base salary range for this full-time position is $215,000 - $270,000 annually + equity + benefits
- Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location
#LI-MDK1
Attentive Company Values
Default to Action - Move swiftly and with purpose
Be One Unstoppable Team - Rally as each other’s champions
Champion the Customer - Our success is defined by our customers' success
Act Like an Owner - Take responsibility for Attentive’s success
Learn more about AWAKE, Attentive’s collective of employee resource groups.
If you do not meet all the requirements listed here, we still encourage you to apply! No job description is perfect, and we may also have another opportunity that closely matches your skills and experience.
At Attentive, we know that our Company's strength lies in the diversity of our employees. Attentive is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Our policy is to provide equal employment opportunities for all employees, applicants and covered individuals regardless of protected characteristics. We prioritize and maintain a fair, inclusive and equitable workplace free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Attentive is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need any assistance or reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.
