Senior ML Engineer

Senior ML Engineer

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan (Remote)

Role Overview

This position is for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join a team focused on developing end-to-end Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for autonomous vehicles. The team is responsible for converting petabytes of multi-modal fleet data into high-quality, semantically rich training datasets. This role will own the dataset layer that these advanced models learn from, playing a part in the data flywheel that includes mining failure cases, auto-labeling at scale, and validating data quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and deploy cloud-based pipelines to convert logged multi-sensor data into VLM/VLA training datasets.
• Develop open-vocabulary detection, dense captioning, and semantic enrichment using foundation models to scale annotation.
• Produce language-grounded reasoning and chain-of-causation style annotations to support VLA training.
• Surface rare, difficult, and high-uncertainty scenarios to build curated datasets that improve downstream model metrics.
• Define dataset schemas, quality metrics, and validation processes, tracking auto-labeling quality against model requirements.
• Partner with VLM/VLA model developers to define dataset specifications and operationalize a continuous delivery loop.
• Build distributed, reproducible pipelines using columnar data formats and distributed compute.
• Serve as a project lead, mentor engineers, conduct design reviews, and set coding and annotation standards.
• Track advances in multimodal models, auto-labeling, and end-to-end autonomous driving to apply relevant research.

Required Qualifications

Education: A Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field with competences typically acquired through 6+ years of experience, or a Master's Degree in a related technical field with competences typically acquired through 3+ years of experience.

Experience: Must be highly skilled and proficient, able to conduct complex work under minimal supervision. Expected to drive alignment across team interfaces, own technical solutions, and mentor other engineers.

Technical Skills: A combination of the following skills is required:

• Computer Vision & Deep Learning: Model training and expertise in at least two of the following: 2D/3D Object Detection, Tracking, Sensor Fusion, Semantic Segmentation, BEV, or Depth Estimation.
• Multimodal / VLM Experience: Hands-on work with vision-language models, open-vocabulary recognition, dense captioning, or semantic search applied to perception data.
• Model Data Curation: Building targeted datasets and large-scale Parquet data processing (e.g., Databricks, Daft, Pandas).
• Distributed ML & Data Frameworks: Experience with PyTorch, Lightning, Ray, Spark, or equivalent.
• Scaled MLOps & Tooling: Knowledge of experiment tracking, model registry (e.g., MLflow, Weights & Biases), and ML metrics.
• Development Tools: Strong Python software development skills, experience with VDI and cloud-based environments, CI systems (e.g., GitHub Actions), and Docker.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with VLM/VLA or end-to-end driving models and reasoning-trace datasets.
• Experience with auto-labeling foundation models for annotation and verification.
• Knowledge of high-throughput model serving frameworks like vLLM or SGLang.
• Experience with semantic inference, retrieval, and vector databases such as LanceDB.
• Familiarity with AV data standards (e.g., Pegasus layers) and robotics formats (e.g., ROS bags, MCAP).
• Proficiency in cloud development and orchestration, including Terraform and AWS managed services.
• Experience with data visualization tools like Foxglove or FiftyOne.
• Contributions to closed-loop/open-loop evaluation frameworks or publications in top-tier AI/Robotics venues.

Everforth Apex is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Everforth Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRateds Best of Staffing® in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work® in the United Kingdom and Mexico.

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Everforth Apex Benefits Overview: Everforth Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Everforth Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Everforth Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Everforth Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Everforth Apex team member can provide.

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