Senior Machine Learning Engineer

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><h2><strong>Join Our Talented Team at Protagonist</strong></h2> <p>We fuse rigorous, methodologically sound analysis with our cutting-edge technology platform, Narrative Analytics®. This powerful combination enables us to quantitatively analyze open-source media, deliver strategic recommendations, and craft executive-level communication strategies for clients with missions that matter.</p> <h2><strong>Why Us?</strong></h2> <p>Our team is a vibrant mix of communication specialists, data scientists, and subject matter experts with extensive experience across U.S. Government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. By joining Protagonist, you’ll immerse yourself in a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, and your contributions truly matter.</p> <h2><strong>What We Do</strong></h2> <ul> <li><strong>Innovative Solutions:</strong> We co-develop cutting-edge solutions with our clients to address tough communication problems and capitalize on opportunities to make a tangible impact.</li> <li><strong>Data-Driven Insights:</strong> Our tools and methodologies provide actionable insights that help clients meet their communication objectives and stay ahead of global challenges.</li> <li><strong>Applied Expertise:</strong> We integrate our solutions within client organizations, leveraging our profound expertise to address critical issues and ensure sustainable success.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Be Part of Something Bigger</strong></h2> <p>At Protagonist, you’ll work on compelling projects that make a real difference. We seek talented individuals eager to contribute to our mission and grow alongside us. If you’re passionate about communication, data analysis, and making an impact, we invite you to explore a career with Protagonist.</p> <h2><strong>Explore Your Future with Us!</strong></h2> <p>Ready to take the next step in your career? Join us at Protagonist and be part of a team that's making a difference.</p></div><p><strong>Job Description</strong></p> <p><span data-contrast="auto">Protagonist is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer who builds production-ready systems for mission-critical work. You bring strong engineering discipline, systems thinking, and a bias toward scalable, well-architected solutions—owning the full ML lifecycle from design to deployment.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span data-contrast="auto">You’re&nbsp;a builder and strategic partner across engineering, product, and client-facing teams, expanding what AI can do at Protagonist. You stay curious and current with advances in ML, infrastructure, and software development.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></p> <h3><strong>Responsibilities</strong></h3> <ul> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Partner with product, engineering, and data science teams to&nbsp;identify&nbsp;high-impact NLP use cases and turn business needs into ML solutions that deliver measurable value</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Own production NLP pipelines spanning narrative detection, NER, span classification, stance and characterization analysis, event extraction, deduplication, and knowledge-base&nbsp;entity linking over multi-language, noisy real-world text</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Design, build, and&nbsp;operate&nbsp;production NLP pipelines,&nbsp;narrative detection, event classification, entity resolution and linking, deduplication — over multi-language, noisy real-world text at scale</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Build and&nbsp;maintain&nbsp;ML workflows in&nbsp;Metaflow&nbsp;orchestrated on Argo Workflows and Kubernetes (EKS), including GPU-accelerated training and batch inference</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Develop LLM-powered features on AWS Bedrock: RAG pipelines with vector search on OpenSearch, tool-using agents, and document-analysis workflows — within GovCloud/ITAR constraints</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Fine-tune and deploy transformer models (classification, embeddings, entity linking) for domain-specific and foreign-language content</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Establish ML evaluation frameworks regression testing, hallucination detection, quality metrics and define success criteria with product managers</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Integrate ML services into our Django/PostgreSQL platform and event-driven infrastructure (Kafka, Redis, OpenSearch)</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Lead technical discussions to align cross-functional teams on ML strategy, architecture, and implementation</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Mentor others, share knowledge, and help evolve ML practices—balancing innovation with practical delivery</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> </ul> <h3><strong>Requirements</strong></h3> <ul> <li><span data-contrast="auto">U.S. person eligible to work on government contracts; active or prior SECRET clearance preferred</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Bachelor’s and 5 years of experience, or master’s degree and 3 years of experience, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Proven&nbsp;track record&nbsp;building and deploying production ML systems, with deep NLP&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;(transformers, LLMs, embedding models)</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Strong Python skills and fluency with&nbsp;PyTorch&nbsp;and the Hugging Face ecosystem</span><spa