Machine Learning Engineer (LATAM)

Lateral stands for technology excellence.

We’re a profitable, award-winning design and technology company with over 20 years of experience launching bold ventures and transforming businesses. A globally distributed team of 200+ experts united by a shared purpose: the continuous pursuit of quality.

Our clients come to us for results, quality and craft - and stay because we keep raising the bar.

We do things differently at Lateral

Our mission is simple: design and build great products.
What sets us apart isn’t just the talent of our team - it’s the way we work:

We Have A Bias For Action & Results.

We are doers - we spot the gaps, connect the dots, anticipate what’s around the corner and take action. We move fast, stay focused, and let the results - not the effort - speak for themselves.

We Work On Time, On Budget, On Quality

Discipline is our edge -  a commitment we make to each other, to our clients, and to the standards we hold ourselves to.

We Care Deeply. 

We care about our work and about each other. Care Is A Competitive Advantage.

Every detail matters. Every design, every line of code, every decision. Thoughtful by default.

We Do Things Right - Because It’s the Right Thing to Do

Right over easy. Integrity isn’t up for negotiation. We hold the bar high even when no one’s watching. We take pride in doing great work the right way - not the easy way.

We Keep Improving

The best teams keep improving and we’re never done learning.

We iterate. We reflect on what’s working and what’s not. Feedback fuels us, we receive it openly, and adapt quickly. Progress over perfection. 

We’re Obsessed With Agility, Not The Agile Manifesto

We don’t chase dogma or rituals  - we chase momentum. We adapt processes to fit problems, not the other way around.

We Take Ownership
Everyone leads something here. You will have room to run with ideas, and the trust to execute. That trust is built on how you show up: thinking things through, sweating the details, and following through.

What You’ll Do 

We leverage cutting-edge machine learning to deliver innovative solutions in medical imaging. As a Machine Learning Engineer at Lateral, you will be instrumental in realizing our AI vision through a variety of critical tasks:

• Experimentation and Optimization: You will help parallelize and distribute work amongst different experiment tracks, optimize model performance via hyperparameter tuning, model ensembling, or advanced training strategies, and design and conduct systematic experiments to validate hypotheses and model improvements.

• Research and Development: Your responsibilities will include conducting literature reviews on state-of-the-art methods in medical imaging, designing and prototyping novel machine learning models, implementing model architecture and training strategies in code, and generating ideas and exploring methods for improvements to existing models or tasks.

• Analysis and Validation: You will perform statistical analysis to assess model robustness and reproducibility, and compare proposed methods against baselines and benchmarks from existing literature.

• Interdisciplinary Collaboration: You will collaborate with domain experts to define problem statements and interpret model outputs, ensuring our AI solutions are both technically sound and clinically impactful.

What We’re Looking For

We’re seeking research-minded engineers who are excited to build real, meaningful ML systems, not just prototypes. You’ll thrive in this role if you bring:

• 2+ years of hands-on experience in machine learning, including model design, training, and evaluation.

• Demonstrated experience applying machine learning to real-world computer vision problems, including developing, deploying, and optimizing models.

• Familiarity with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow and comfort writing clean, modular experimentation code.

• Practical experience running experiments, tuning models, and comparing approaches via systematic validation.

• Excellent grasp of modern ML concepts: regularization, loss functions, optimization strategies, generalization, overfitting, etc.

• Basic data analysis skills using tools like Polars or Pandas for efficient data manipulation and exploratory data analysis.

• An understanding of statistical testing and experimental design to assess performance, robustness, and reproducibility.

• Curiosity about new techniques — you enjoy staying current with ML literature and applying ideas in production-minded ways.

• Strong communication skills — able to collaborate with other engineers, researchers, and domain experts to translate needs into solutions.

Bonus points for:

• Experience with medical imaging, scientific ML, or regulated environments.

• Contributions to papers, open-source projects, or research infrastructure.

• Familiarity with explainability techniques (e.g., SHAP, saliency maps) and fairness/audit frameworks.

• A track record of generating novel ideas, exploring them rigorously, and translating them into working systems.

• Experience building ML pipelines (training, evaluation, deployment) in production, especially in cloud environments like AWS.

Why You’ll Love Working Here

• Real Impact: You’ll work on meaningful products that make a measurable difference - from healthcare and commerce to sustainability and next-gen tech.
  
  

• Remote-First, Office Friendly: Work from wherever you’re most productive - whether that’s your home, a co-working space, or one of our offices. We’re a remote-first company, but if you’re near an office, you’re welcome to drop in, collaborate in person, or work onsite regularly.
  
  We prioritize async collaboration, respect your time zone, and focus on outcomes over hours.
  
  

• An Outstanding Team: Talented, kind, and hard-working people who care deeply about their craft - and about each other. No egos. No politics. Just professionals doing their best work.
  
  

• Growth: You’ll be supported in growing your craft, exploring new paths, and stepping into greater responsibility - at your own pace
  
  

• A Culture of Excellence: We care deeply about doing the right thing - for our clients, our team, and ourselves. No burnout. No crunch. Just high-quality work, delivered sustainably.
  
  

• Variety & Stability: We’re profitable, independent, and over a decade strong. Yet every project brings a fresh challenge. You’ll never be bored here.

This Role Might Not Be for You

We want to respect your time by being clear about what this role isn’t. You should skip this opportunity if:

• You prefer well defined structure. If you gravitate towards a clear hierarchy, well defined roles and swim lanes, you may find our self-managed style challenging.
  
  

• Distributed work isn’t your thing. If you find async communication, design documentation and being proactive without a manager nearby difficult, our setup won’t suit you.
  
  

• Feedback doesn't excite you. We’re obsessed with quality and believe in continuous improvement. That means we give feedback that’s sometimes nitpicky. If refining the work until it’s excellent feels over the top, you are likely going to find working here frustrating.
  
  

• Change makes you uncomfortable. We’re scaling and maturing. That means not everything is perfect yet. Priorities shift. Processes evolve. If ambiguity is uncomfortable, this may feel bumpy.
  
  

However, If this sounds like fuel, we’d love to talk!

How to apply and what to expect in the interview process

Our hiring process is structured as a sequence of steps. Moving forward is based on how well the previous step goes. This helps us stay focused, fair, and respectful of everyone’s time.

We will always:

• Let you know clearly what the next step is

• Share updates and feedback wherever possible

• Invite questions if anything feels unclear

Not everyone progresses through every stage. That doesn’t mean you’re not great at what you do. Sometimes it’s about timing, team fit, or simply what we’re looking for at the moment.

Step 1: Express Your Interest 

If this sounds like your kind of team and you’re ready to bring your craft to Lateral, we want to hear from you.

Please send us:

• Your resume 

• A short note about what excites you about this role

• Links to your work: GitHub/ Code snippets, portfolio, architecture /design docs, blog posts, or anything that shows us how you think and build
  
  Please don’t include anything sensitive or proprietary.
  If you’re sharing team projects, let us know what your specific contributions were.

We review every application with care. If there’s a fit, we’ll reach out to schedule next steps. 

Step 2: Talent Partner Conversation  

Purpose: A structured discussion with our People Experience team to delve into your career trajectory, motivations, and alignment with Lateral's values.

What to Expect:

• In-depth questions about your past experiences and decision-making processes.

• Exploration of your career goals and how they align with the role.

• Discussion about our company culture, availability, compensation and other logistics 

• Motivators and demotivators.

• Your life outside coding.

Preparation Tips:

• Reflect on your career journey and pivotal moments.

• Be ready to discuss challenges you've overcome and lessons learned.

• Familiarize yourself with the Job Description, Lateral's mission and values. 

Step 3: Technical interview

Purpose: Assess your technical proficiency and problem-solving abilities.
Format: A collaborative session with our engineering team, focusing on real-world scenarios relevant to the role.

What to Expect:

• Problem-solving exercises/questions that mirror tasks you'd encounter in the position.

• Discussions around your approach, reasoning, and solutions.

Preparation Tips:

• Practice articulating your thought process clearly and concisely.

• Be prepared to discuss in depth past projects and the technologies used.

Step 4: Client interview

Purpose: Evaluate how well you collaborate, communicate, and consult with external stakeholders.

Format: A live conversation with one of our client-side collaborators

What to Expect:

• Discussion around business and technical challenges from the client’s perspective.

• Opportunity to explain your approach, gather requirements, ask clarifying questions, and articulate tradeoffs.

• Evaluation of how clearly you communicate solutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preparation Tips:

• Once client details are shared, educate yourself with their business and potential challenges

• Review past experiences where you’ve had to communicate complex ideas clearly.

• Reflect on your ability to lead conversations, guide decision-making, and build trust across different audiences.

Step 5: Operational interview 

Purpose: Understand your approach to prioritizing, collaborating, shipping, and iterating.

What to expect:

• How you prioritize and break down work.

• How you collaborate across disciplines.

• How you handle blockers, feedback, and iteration.

Preparation Tips:

• Pick 1-2 meaningful projects you led or heavily contributed to.

• Walk through your process: what worked, what didn’t, what you’d do differently.

• Think about how you manage time, scope, and changing requirements.

Step 6: Reference Checks

Purpose: We believe references are about understanding, not just validation. We do not look for perfection, but to understand patterns, strengths, and context. We use them to learn how to support you best. 

What to Expect: we’ll ask you for 2–3 people who’ve worked closely with you. These are often: former managers, senior peers or collaborators, mentors or people you've mentored. 

What we ask: We focus on how you’ve grown, where you shine, how you like to be led, and what support sets you up for success. We want practical advice for making this a great fit for you.

Yes, we do backchannels too: We do this when we feel we need more context. We will check with you if there are folks we should avoid reaching out due to confidentiality or other reasons. And here’s our commitment: if anything surprising or unclear comes up in a backchannel, we’ll bring it directly to you. We believe in “no stories without you in the room.” You’ll always get the chance to share your side, context, or clarification.

Step 7: Offer

What Happens: If selected, you'll receive a comprehensive offer detailing compensation, and other pertinent information.

Our hiring process is designed to be thorough yet respectful, ensuring a mutual fit. We encourage candidates to engage actively, ask questions, and view this as a two-way exploration.

Join us  and let’s build something extraordinary.