ML Research Engineer

ML Research Engineer

Boston, MA August 19, 2026

Layer Health was founded in 2023 by leading machine learning researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School. We are building an AI layer that can accurately and scalably synthesize information from medical records, with the mission to reduce friction everywhere in healthcare. Our LLM-powered platform is solving chart review once and for all, across use cases. For health systems, our first product dramatically accelerates clinical registry abstraction in areas ranging from surgery and cardiology, to oncology. Our long term vision is for our AI layer to safely transform patient care and minimize unnecessary heartbreak. Layer Health's diverse founding team brings expertise across machine learning, UI/UX, large language models, and medicine.

We're seeking outstanding hires to join our team as early members. This is an opportunity to contribute to a high-impact, collaborative, mission-driven team, and help define the next stage of growth for Layer Health. Together, we will create the AI layer that will redefine healthcare for the better.

Job Description

We're hiring an exceptional ML Engineer to join our team (Boston or NYC office). In this role, you will design, develop, and deploy scalable ML software systems to address large-scale challenges in healthcare. You will work closely with our software engineers, research scientists, and product teams to build ML-native enterprise platforms, ensuring scalability, efficiency, and reliability.

You can expect to:

• Architect efficient, secure, reliable, and performant ML pipelines and infrastructure.
• Design, develop, and maintain scalable/data-centric backend infrastructure for our product.
• Translate start-of-the-art LLM research (both internally developed and from the community) into production, delivering value for our customers.
• Work with complex, large-scale, real-world clinical data (both structured and unstructured data) in a cloud-based environment.
• Develop methods and features to ensure high-quality results for our production models (methods to detect drift/performance degradation; develop observability tooling for performance characteristics, etc.).
• Collaborate with the broader product, engineering, and research teams to improve our products and build the next-generation of ML for healthcare.
• Build scalable infrastructure to ensure we can scalably support efficient model development and deployment pipelines, CI/CD, testing/experimentation.
• Ensure robust monitoring, logging, and error handling for deployed systems.
• Stay updated on the latest advancements in machine learning and AI.
• Cultivate a robust ML engineering and product culture that drives the company forward.

We look for:

• 3+ years of experience in building ML-native backend infrastructure.
• 5-7+ years of experience in backend and cloud platform software development, with the ability and flexibility to traverse the stack when necessary.
• Fluency in one or more backend programming languages including Python, Golang, Rust, Java (we use Python).
• Familiarity with modern ML/LLM techniques and frameworks.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field.
• Experience in 0-to-1 development of end-to-end ML systems (design, training, inference, deployment, and monitoring; bonus if involving LLMs).
• Experience developing and maintaining performant, scalable, and data-centric enterprise software products.
• Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• An excited and adaptable team player who wants to disrupt the healthcare industry with AI/ML, alongside an awesome team, in a customer-focused and fast-paced environment.
• We are a Boston-based company, and expect engineers to meet regularly in-person in either our NYC or Boston office (engineers from Boston, NYC, or east coast are welcome).

Expected compensation range for this role is $160,000-200,000, in addition to stock options. Compensation is dependent on experience, overall fit to our role, and candidate location. Expected compensation ranges for this role may change over time. If your compensation requirement is greater than our posted salary ranges, please still consider applying to our role. We will make a determination as to whether an exception can be made.

If you are excited about this role, we encourage you to apply even if you don't feel that you meet every single requirement. We're eager to meet people that believe in our mission and can contribute to our team in a variety of ways. We welcome diverse perspectives, rigorous thinking, and fearlessness in challenging the status quo.

Layer Health is committed to fostering an environment of inclusion that is free from discrimination. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer where employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Join us and help us transform healthcare with AI.