Machine Learning Engineer

Member of Technical Staff – Machine Learning Engineer (Secret Clearance)

Location: Washington, DC (Hybrid – DMV) travel to SCIF's as needed

Clearance: Active and transferable Secret Clearance

Salary: $150,000-$215,000 and 5000 of equity shares

Talent Stack is supporting a confidential, defense-focused technology client in hiring a Machine Learning Engineer to build and deploy production-grade AI applications in mission-critical environments.

About the Role:

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy working across machine learning, data engineering, and software engineering, with a strong emphasis on systems design, performance, and real-world deployment. The work directly supports high-impact programs in secure and regulated settings. This is NOT a Data Science role.

What We're Looking For:

• Engineers with hands-on experience deploying ML systems into production
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, not research-only or experimentation-focused profiles
• Comfort working across ML models, backend services, and data pipelines
• Experience improving performance, scalability, and reliability of deployed systems
• Engineers who value ownership, maintainability, and usability
• Willingness to work on-site in secure DC-area environments (SCIFs) as required

What You'll Do:

• Design, build, and maintain production ML systems using Python
• Lead platform and system upgrades to improve scalability and performance
• Develop interactive, user-facing analytics dashboards using a Python-based SDK
• Optimize data access patterns and runtime performance
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues in live, mission-critical applications
• Partner closely with Technical Product Managers to enhance usability and delivery

Required Qualifications:

• 4+ years of professional experience as an ML Engineer, Software Engineer, or similar
• Bachelors degree from a top US based Computer Science program/STEM related degree.
• 4+ years of Python engineering experience in production environments
• Proven experience deploying and maintaining ML models in live systems
• Solid understanding of software engineering best practices (testing, version control, performance, maintainability)
• Experience working in security-sensitive, regulated, or mission-critical environments
• Active Secret clearance
• Prior experience supporting DoD, IC, or federal customers
• Strong systems and performance optimization experience
• Experience building user-facing analytics or decision-support tools

Work Environment:

• Hybrid role based in Washington, DC
• 40-hour work week with flexible start/end times
• Core hours: 10am–4pm
• On-site work in SCIFs required based on project needs
• Occasional travel to U.S. customer sites
• Visa sponsorship not available, Must be a US citizen

Active and transferable U.S. government–issued security clearance is required prior to start date. Candidates must currently hold an active Secret, (TS) or TS/SCI clearance.

U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.

Recruitment Agencies Disclaimer:
This position is posted for direct applicants only. We kindly request that external recruiters, staffing agencies, or search firms refrain from submitting candidates. Unsolicited resumes will be treated as direct applications, and no agency fees will be honored.

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