Senior AI/ML Engineer - Production AI

About USDM

USDM Life Sciences is a premier consulting company with 20+ years of experience assisting heavily regulated biotech, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies with their GxP technologies to accelerate growth. Our deep domain knowledge and technology expertise in life sciences business processes are what set us apart. From strategy to implementation and adoption, we have delivered thousands of GxP projects globally.

As part of the USDM team, you have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies through our many partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Google, Oracle, DocuSign, Box, and many more. From molecule to market, you will help connect technology, people, and data in new ways to generate real-time insights to improve business outcomes for USDM's clients. Are you ready to make an impact and drive real digital transformation in life sciences?

Founded in Santa Barbara in 1999, USDM has grown to a progressive, global company with 300+ remote employees and offices throughout the US, Canada, and Germany.

Nature and Scope of Job

We are seeking a Senior AI/ML Engineer with strong experience delivering production grade ML and Generative AI solutions. In this role you will do model development, design, deploy, monitor, and govern enterprise ready ML and GenAI systems that are scalable, auditable, and compliant with internal AI policies and regulatory expectations. You will help establish MLOps and GenAI Ops foundations, including evaluation, observability, and Responsible AI controls, enabling safe adoption of both predictive ML and GenAI use cases across the organization.

Primary Responsibilities

AI/ML & GenAI Engineering

• Design, build, and deploy production grade ML and Generative AI solutions, moving from prototypes to hardened services
• Implement GenAI patterns such as:
• Retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
• Prompt engineering and prompt versioning
• Embedding pipelines and vector search
• Secure API based model access
• Ensure AI systems meet enterprise standards for scalability, performance, reliability, and security

MLOps & GenAI Ops Frameworks

• Build or configure end to end MLOps and GenAI Ops frameworks covering:
• Model and prompt versioning
• Reproducible pipelines and CI/CD for ML and GenAI workloads
• Controlled deployment and rollback strategies
• Integrate AI workflows with enterprise data platforms, orchestration tools, and cloud infrastructure

Model & GenAI Evaluation

• Define evaluation frameworks for both ML and GenAI, including:
• Model accuracy, robustness, and drift
• LLM response quality, grounding, hallucination risk, and safety checks
• Bias, fairness, and explainability assessments
• Establish acceptance criteria and validation artifacts suitable for regulated and audit ready environments

Observability & Monitoring

• Implement observability frameworks for ML and GenAI systems to monitor:
• Model and LLM performance degradation
• Data and embedding drift
• Prompt and response behavior over time
• Latency, failure modes, and usage patterns
• Enable full logging and traceability to support investigations, audits, and continuous improvement

Responsible & Ethical AI

• Embed Responsible AI principles across the AI lifecycle, including:
• Human in the loop controls for GenAI assisted workflows
• Transparency, explainability, and proper use disclosures
• Strong data privacy, access control, and lineage discipline
• Ensure GenAI features are opt in, governed, and aligned with Legend's AI policies and regulatory expectations

Collaboration & Leadership

• Partner with Data Engineering, Architecture, Security, QA, and Business teams
• Translate business problems into well scoped, governed AI and GenAI solutions
• Contribute to enterprise AI standards, reference architectures, and platform roadmaps

Additional Responsibilities

• Performs other related duties and assignments as required

Qualifications

• Python and ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit learn)
• LLMs and GenAI tooling (commercial or open source)
• MLOps practices, pipelines, and automation
• Cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP)
• Familiarity with vector databases, embedding strategies, and RAG & graph architectures
• Proven ability to design governed, observable, and secure AI systems
• Experience in biotech, life sciences, healthcare, or other GxP relevant domains
• Extensive experience operating within enterprise SDLC and production IT processes.
• Demonstrated experience delivering AI systems through full system development lifecycle (SDLC).

Nice to Have

• Experience implementing GenAI in enterprise or regulated environments
• Exposure to AI governance, risk assessments, or validation frameworks

Education & Certifications

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field

5+ years of hands on experience deploying ML systems in production

Working Conditions

The working conditions described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential responsibilities and functions of the job and are not meant to be all-inclusive. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential responsibilities and functions of the job.

Unless reasonable accommodations can be made, while performing this job the staff member shall:

• Prolonged periods of sitting or standing at a desk and working on a computer in an environmentally controlled home office environment.
• Operate other office productivity machinery, such as a calculator, scanner, or printer.
• Frequently communicate with stakeholders via telephone, email, or instant message. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.

Equal Opportunity Statement

USDM Life Sciences is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

Disclaimer

This job description is intended to describe the general nature and the level of the work being performed by the people assigned to this position. It is not intended to include every job duty and responsibility specific to the position. USDM Life Sciences reserves the right to amend and change responsibilities to meet business and organizational needs as necessary.

Compensation

Salary/Hourly Rate Range (W2): USD 95.00 - 115.00

The base salary/hourly rate range represents the anticipated low and high end of the USDM's compensation range for this position. Actual salaries/hourly rates will vary and will be based on various factors, such as the candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. The compensation described above is subject to change and could be higher or lower than the range described based on market survey data or budget.

Full-time employees are eligible for health, vision, and dental insurance, life insurance, short and long-term disability, hospital indemnity, accident, and critical care coverage.

Both full and part-time employees, who are at least 21 years of age, are eligible to participate in USDM's 401k plan. Full and part-time employees may be eligible for paid time off.

All employees are eligible for USDM's rewards and recognition program.

For more details about our benefits, visit us here: