Staff AI Platform Engineer

We’re on a mission to democratize AI by building the definitive AI data development platform. The AI landscape has gone through incredible change between 2016, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler!

As a Staff AI Platform Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in designing and implementing the core AI pipelines that drive SnorkelFlow’s AI capabilities. You will act as a technical leader, setting architectural direction, mentoring team members, and collaborating across verticals to ensure the AI Platform aligns with product goals and organizational strategy.

This role requires hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs), requiring deep expertise in AI development, especially in designing and deploying systems that leverage LLMs and more traditional NLP solutions for production workflows.

Main Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Provide technical direction for the design and development of AI pipelines, ensuring scalability, robustness, and extensibility.
• Serve as a mentor and guide for engineers on the AI Platform team, fostering growth and technical excellence.
• Identify and drive high-impact projects aligned with business objectives and product needs.

AI Pipeline Development

• Architect, design, and maintain AI pipelines for labeling, embeddings, training, and deploying models into production.
• Lead the development and optimization of MLFlow pipelines for deployment.
• Build and deploy foundational models that serve as the backbone for SnorkelFlow’s core product capabilities.
• Partner with the Compute Platform team to ensure seamless integration with orchestration tools and infrastructure.

LLM Tooling development:

• Develop and deploy LLM-based systems for production workflows, focusing on efficiency, scalability, and reproducibility.
• Create AI training framework pipelines that will allow LLM usage in applications, including fine-tuning, pruning, distillation, and foundational model training.
• Integrate APIs from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini into SnorkelFlow’s pipelines.

Backend Development

• Oversee the integration of backend services for managing LLM calls and API interactions.
• Collaborate with the Data Platform team to define data requirements and ensure smooth interoperability.
• Work with the Application team to design and implement APIs that power application workflows.

Observability and Monitoring

• Establish observability standards for AI pipelines, including tools and dashboards for monitoring model performance and debugging.
• Define key metrics for system health and optimization.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as a thought leader, collaborating with Data Platform, Compute Platform, Application, Product and other internal teams to deliver cohesive, scalable solutions.
• Partner with stakeholders to translate product goals into technical roadmaps and

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience with a good portion of them in AI development, including hands-on work with AI in production systems.
• Strong expertise in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
• Proven experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers.
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines for machine learning workflows.
• Deep understanding of LLM architectures, fine-tuning, and deployment methodologies.
• Strong communication skills, with an emphasis on scalable and reliable system design.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in NLP and familiarity with libraries such as Hugging Face Transformers, spaCy, scikit-learn, or XGBoost.
• Familiarity with multimodal AI concepts, including vision and audio tasks.
• Experience working with APIs and foundational model providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini.
• Knowledge of MLOps tools and practices, such as MLflow, Kubernetes, or Ray.
• Experience building APIs or SDKs for AI services.

What We Offer

• A leadership role with the opportunity to influence the technical direction of SnorkelFlow.
• Competitive salary and benefits tailored to your experience.
• Hybrid work environment with 3 days per week at our Redwood City HQ and SF Office.
• "No Meeting" Tuesdays and Thursdays to focus on deep work.
• The chance to work on cutting-edge infrastructure and drive impactful change in an innovative, fast-paced environment.

 

Be Your Best At Snorkel   Snorkel AI is on a mission to make machine learning practical for everyone, and it starts with building a team that welcomes, represents and gives opportunity to all. We work at the frontier of AI and software engineering, and believe that underrepresented communities need to play a part in shaping the future of these fields. At Snorkel AI, we actively work to create an environment that values end-to-end ownership, diverse forms of impact, and opportunities for personal growth.   Snorkelers are supported by an amazing team and an amazing set of benefits. For Full-time employees, we offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans for Snorkelers and their families, plus a yearly wellness stipend. Our 401k program lets Snorkelers plan for their future and our parental leave program lets new parents take up to 20 weeks of paid time off. Learn more about these benefits and more — like our workstation setup allowance — on our Careers page.   Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.   We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.