HomeJobsScale AI › Public Sector Engineering

Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Public Sector

Scale AI San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Washington, DC Full-time Public Sector Engineering Posted Apr 30, 2026
Apply Now →

What it’s like to work at Scale AI

AI Data Infrastructure · San Francisco

3.5
Employee Rating
2.7
Work-Life Balance
174
Open Roles
eng-drivenproduct-impactlearningship-fast

What employees love

  • Building critical AI data infrastructure used by OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and the US government
  • Strong compensation for engineers — competitive base + equity

What could be better

  • Work-life balance rated 2.7/5 — long hours common during client deadlines
  • Culture and values scored 2.9/5 — inconsistent management quality
View full Scale AI culture profile →

About the Role

The goal of a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Scale is to leverage techniques in the fields of generative AI, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and agentic AI to improve Scale's products and customer experience in production environments. Our machine learning engineers take advantage of robust internal infrastructure and unique access to massive datasets to deliver improvements to our customers.

Our Public Sector Machine Learning team is focused on deploying cutting-edge models to mission-critical government systems through products like Donovan and Thunderforge. Our work spans multiple modalities, with a strong focus on both large language models and computer vision. On the LLM side, we are developing agentic systems that help solve complex operational and planning challenges for government partners. This includes building agent frameworks that integrate with custom retrieval pipelines and production APIs, as well as evaluation tools to benchmark and refine agent behavior. We're also advancing research in areas like reinforcement learning for agentic LLMs, with successful deployment into real-world operational environments. On the computer vision front, we're training advanced models to increase labeling throughput and automate perception tasks. Our efforts include building large-scale fine-tuning pipelines, training models across multiple modalities, and developing generalizable vision foundation models to support a wide range of defense applications.

You will:

Ideally You’d Have:

Nice to Haves:

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:
$240,450$300,300 USD
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 Washington DC, Texas, Colorado, Hawaii is:
$216,300$269,850 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 accommodations@scale.com. 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.

PLEASE NOTE: We collect, retain and use personal data for our professional business purposes, including notifying you of job opportunities that may be of interest and sharing with our affiliates. We limit the personal data we collect to that which we believe is appropriate and necessary to manage applicants’ needs, provide our services, and comply with applicable laws. Any information we collect in connection with your application will be treated in accordance with our internal policies and programs designed to protect personal data. Please see our privacy policy for additional information.

Similar Roles

More at Scale AI
DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure & Security
Washington, DC
Mission Software Engineering Manager, Public Sector
San Francisco, CA; St. Louis, MO; New York, NY; Washington, DC
Mission Software Engineer, Public Sector
Baltimore, MD; Colorado Springs, CO; Hampton Roads, VA; Tampa, FL; Tucson,AZ; San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Honolulu, HI, St. Louis, MO; Washington, DC
Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Model Evaluations, Public Sector
San Francisco, CA; St. Louis, MO; New York, NY; Washington, DC
Senior Software Engineer, Public Sector
San Francisco, CA; St. Louis, MO; New York, NY; Washington, DC
Similar roles at other companies
Senior Backend Engineer
Apollo.io · Remote, Poland
Senior Frontend Engineer, AI Observability & Evals Platform
LangChain · San Francisco, CA
Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Database Team
Pinecone · New York City
Senior / Staff Fullstack Engineer
Linear · Europe
Senior Backend Engineer | Mimir OSS | Germany | Remote
Grafana Labs · Germany (Remote)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the work-life balance like at Scale AI?
Scale AI has a work-life balance score of 2.7/5 based on employee reviews. This is below average, which may indicate a fast-paced, demanding work environment.
What is Scale AI’s culture like?
Scale AI is characterized by these culture values: eng-driven, product-impact, learning, ship-fast. Based on employee reviews, the company has an overall rating of 3.5/5. Building critical AI data infrastructure used by OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and the US government
How many open roles does Scale AI have?
Scale AI currently has 174 open roles across departments including engineering, product, sales, and more. Roles are refreshed daily from their careers page.
Is this role remote-friendly?
This role is located in San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Washington, DC. Check the job description above for specific location and remote work details.
Apply for this role at Scale AI →