Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Highlight

Location: San Francisco, California
Type: Full-time
Level: Senior
Posted: Jan 20, 2026

Description

Highlight is seeking a Senior ML Engineer to develop AI systems for their platform. This role involves working with the entire machine learning stack, including data pipelines, model training, retrieval, ranking, evaluation, and deployment. The successful candidate will design and optimize ML pipelines, implement RAG systems, build comprehensive evaluations, investigate alternative models, and collaborate with backend and product engineering teams to deliver AI-powered features.

Required Skills

ML Pipelines
Model Training
Retrieval
Ranking
Evaluations
Deployment
RAG Systems
Large Language Models (LLMs)
PyTorch
Vector Databases
Modern ML Infrastructure
Prompt Engineering
Fine Tuning
Evaluation Frameworks

Additional Information

Required Previous Experiences: 4+ years in ML/AI engineering, with significant experience shipping production systems
Preferred Qualifications: Strong software engineering fundamentals: you write clean, maintainable code
Deep experience with retrieval, ranking, RAG, or search systems at scale
Hands on proficiency with PyTorch, vector databases, and modern ML infrastructure
Experience with LLM applications (prompt engineering, fine tuning, eval frameworks)
Product thinker: understands how to connect great ML products to constraints, evals, and modeling when building them
A bias toward action: you ship fast, measure rigorously, and iterate based on data
Ownership mentality (no task is too small for you) – it’s all hands on deck here and we need everyone rowing the boat.
Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset – we’re extremely lean so we’re looking for a team player who works well with others.
Type-A tendencies: maybe you’re extremely detail-oriented. Or maybe you take pride in shipping high-quality products. Whatever it is you do, you give it your all.