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Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Autonomous Defense

horizon3aiUS, RemoteEngineering
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Salary
$211K - $249K
Job type
Full-time
Work mode
Remote
Experience
Senior · 5+ yrs
Posted
14 Sept 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Autonomous Defense is a full-time remote role at horizon3ai that suits an experienced software engineer focused on production machine learning systems. This professional will manage the infrastructure and pipelines necessary to bring defensive artificial intelligence models into live environments.

Role Overview

The Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Autonomous Defense position centers on bridging the gap between research prototypes and operational production systems. Operating within a remote structure, this engineer owns the training pipelines, serving infrastructure, and release mechanisms that support autonomous security assessment platforms.

Key Responsibilities

Build and manage training and post-training pipelines, including data preparation, fine-tuning, experiment tracking, and artifact management.
Establish inference and serving layers with provider routing, regional data residency pinning, batching, and caching.
Manage model-layer release paths, handling versioned configs, tenant-level shadow and canary deployments, and rollbacks.
Monitor model behavior, regression, latency, output quality, and per-tenant cost accounting with budget enforcement.
Construct data and context pipelines, including retrieval and embedding infrastructure with end-to-end tenant isolation.
Optimize cost and latency across the inference path to inform product decisions with concrete data.
Develop core product features in ETL and GraphQL for model outputs, run history, and evaluation results.
Partner with researchers to transition prototypes into production while feeding operational constraints back into research.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Minimum of 5 years of professional software engineering experience with strong production Python skills.
Demonstrated experience taking machine learning or LLM-backed systems from prototype to production and operating them.
Hands-on experience with ML pipelines, training or fine-tuning workflows, experiment tracking, and model registries.
Experience building and operating inference or model-serving infrastructure in production with cost and latency optimization.
Experience building applications on cloud computing platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP using Docker and Kubernetes.
Solid proficiency in SQL and experience building production data pipelines.

Nice to Have

Experience operationalizing LLM or agentic systems.
Hands-on post-training experience with supervised fine-tuning, distillation, preference optimization, or reinforcement learning.
Experience with model gateways, multi-provider routing, and self-hosted or customer-hosted inference tools like vLLM, TGI, or Bedrock.
Experience with GPU infrastructure, quantization, or inference optimization.
Background in relational databases like PostgreSQL, graph databases like Neo4j, and GraphQL backends.
Experience with observability tools such as Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing.
Experience shipping machine learning into regulated, air-gapped, or compliant environments like FedRAMP.

Skills and Tools

Python
SQL
AWS, Azure, GCP
Docker
Kubernetes
ETL
GraphQL
vLLM
TGI
Bedrock
PostgreSQL
Neo4j
Datadog
Prometheus
Grafana

Salary and Benefits

Annual base salary ranging from $211,000 to $249,000.
Equity package in the form of stock options for full-time roles.
Health, vision, and dental insurance for employees and families.
Flexible vacation policy and generous parental leave.

About the Company

Horizon3ai is a fast-growing, remote cybersecurity company that provides production-safe autonomous pentests and assessment operations through its flagship NodeZero platform. The company serves organizations ranging from small educational institutions to government agencies and Global 100 enterprises. The team brings together former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers, and cybersecurity practitioners.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply on the official company careers page.

Skills and tech stack

PythonSQLDockerKubernetesETLGraphQLvLLMTGIBedrockPostgreSQLNeo4jDatadogPrometheusGrafanaAWSAzureGCPLLMMachine LearningFine-tuning

Questions candidates ask

What is the salary range for the Senior Machine Learning Engineer role?

The annual base salary ranges from $211,000 to $249,000, determined by location, qualifications, experience, and skills. Full-time roles also include an equity package of stock options.

Is this a remote position?

Yes, this position is listed as US, Remote.

What level of experience is required?

Candidates must have a minimum of 5 years of professional software engineering experience, along with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

What are the primary technical skills needed for this job?

Key requirements include strong production Python, hands-on experience with ML pipelines and tooling, production inference and serving infrastructure experience, cloud platform experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP using Docker and Kubernetes, and solid SQL proficiency.

What benefits does the company offer?

Benefits include health, vision, and dental insurance for employees and their families, a flexible vacation policy, generous parental leave, and stock options.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official horizon3ai careers page.

Apply on company site