Machine Learning Engineering Manager, Public Sector

At Scale, our Public Sector Machine Learning team develops and deploys cutting-edge AI systems into mission-critical government environments. From advanced computer vision pipelines to agentic LLM frameworks, our work directly supports national security and defense partners. We are looking for a Machine Learning Engineering Manager to lead this team of world-class ML engineers and help shape the future of AI in the public sector.

As a Machine Learning Engineering Manager, you will combine strong technical expertise with people leadership. You’ll guide the team in delivering production-grade ML systems across modalities while ensuring alignment with product, research, and government partner needs. Leveraging large language models, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and agentic AI, you will lead research projects and harden them into scalable production systems. This role requires someone who can balance hands-on technical oversight, mentorship, and execution strategy in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment.

You will:

• Lead and grow a team of ML engineers delivering production-ready AI systems for public sector customers.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship on projects spanning agentic LLM frameworks, reinforcement learning, generative AI, and computer vision.
• Collaborate with research, product, and infrastructure teams to align technical roadmaps with organizational and customer priorities.
• Drive operational excellence: establish best practices for model development, deployment, evaluation, and monitoring in secure, high-stakes environments.
• Partner with public sector stakeholders to translate mission needs into scalable ML solutions.
• Work closely with public sector customers to scope and deliver AI applications.
• Ensure effective prioritization and resourcing across multiple programs and customer engagements.
• Cultivate a strong engineering culture that values collaboration, innovation, accountability, and impact.
• Support career development, performance reviews, and hiring to expand the team.

Ideally you’d have:

• US citizenship and US Government Security Clearance is a requirement (TS/SCI preferred)

• Proven experience managing and mentoring ML or AI engineering teams, ideally in applied research or production ML environments.

• Strong technical background in one or more of: computer vision, generative AI/LLMs, reinforcement learning, or agentic systems.

  • Up-to-date understanding of cutting edge ML research and production systems in your domain(s) of expertise.

• Hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) and large-scale ML infrastructure.

• Background in deploying AI systems in high-reliability or mission-critical contexts (public sector, defense, healthcare, finance, etc.).

• Ability to communicate technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including government partners.

• Strong program management skills: ability to set strategy, manage multiple priorities, and deliver on commitments.

Nice to haves:

• Graduate degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field.
• Experience in public sector / defense AI programs.
• Familiarity with evaluation frameworks for LLMs and multi-agent systems.
• Cloud platform (AWS/GCP/Azure) experience, especially in secure deployments.

Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position, determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You’ll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.

Please reference the job posting's subtitle for where this position will be located. For pay transparency purposes, the base salary range for this full-time position in the locations of San Francisco, New York, Seattle is:

$229,000—$286,000 USD

Compensation packages at Scale for eligible roles include base salary, equity, and benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position, determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, interview performance, and relevant education or training. Scale employees in eligible roles are also granted equity based compensation, subject to Board of Director approval. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process, and confirm whether the hired role will be eligible for equity grant. You’ll also receive benefits including, but not limited to: Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, a learning and development stipend, and generous PTO. Additionally, this role may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend.

The base salary range for this full-time position in the location of Washington DC is:

$206,000—$257,000 USD

PLEASE NOTE:  Our policy requires a 90-day waiting period before reconsidering candidates for the same role. This allows us to ensure a fair and thorough evaluation of all applicants.

About Us:

At Scale, our mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world's most important decisions. Our products provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world's leading models, and help enterprises and governments build, deploy, and oversee AI applications that deliver real impact. We work closely with industry leaders like Meta, Cisco, DLA Piper, Mayo Clinic, Time Inc., the Government of Qatar, and U.S. government agencies including the Army and Air Force. We are expanding our team to accelerate the development of AI applications.

We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, which is why we are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability status, gender identity or Veteran status. 

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application or recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at View email address on swooped.co. Please see the United States Department of Labor's Know Your Rights poster for additional information.

We comply with the United States Department of Labor's Pay Transparency provision . 

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