Staff Applied Machine Learning Engineer

About Legion

Let’s be real, AI isn’t magic; Legion was built to move beyond AI hype-delivering secure, reliable systems that work alongside the people tackling the world’s most critical challenges.

Born from a Department of Defense partnership and trusted by leaders across government and enterprise, Legion embeds intelligence inside complex systems, unlocking data, accelerating human workflows, and strengthening mission-critical systems. We don’t replace workflows-we optimize them, ensuring quality, efficiency, and reliability inside the platforms our partners already use.

With world-class collaborators like Palantir, Nvidia, HPE, and Oracle, we’re building intelligent infrastructure that enhances human capability and drives impact at the edge and across a range of enterprises.

We’re looking for bold thinkers and doers to join us in shaping the future of AI that’s secure, grounded, and built to work.

Staff Applied Machine Learning Engineer (Remote USA)

***This role requires expert level in development and deployment of machine learning models***

***US Citizenship or Greencard (Permanent US Residency) is required due to US Government contract requirements***

***You must be domiciled in the U.S. (must live permanently and maintain home address in the US)***

***As a step in the application process you will be required to provide legally authorized Identification to show verification of eligibility through third party provider CLEAR ID***

Job Summary:

In this role, you will leverage your expertise in AI/ML engineering to design, develop, and deploy innovative machine learning and algorithmic solutions. 

If you are adept at building models that solve hard problems, we encourage you to apply. You will collaborate closely with platform engineers and product partners, bringing a strong product orientation to your ML work.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of machine learning models and data-driven algorithms for high impact projects
• Lead the design and development of complex systems involving knowledge graphs and advanced entity detection
• Collaborate with product and platform teams to own ML solutions end-to-end
• Understand the runtime complexity of algorithms and the cost to run ML models at a production scale
• Clearly communicate modeling decisions, tradeoffs, and limitations to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Build, deliver, and maintain enterprise products, ensuring they meet high-quality standards while shipping fast
• Take ownership of your work, from design to implementation and maintenance, and drive projects to successful completion
• Support production systems, handling debugging challenges in distributed systems to ensure reliability and uptime
• Adapt quickly, bringing in latest developments in AI and machine learning, and proactively apply this knowledge to drive innovation within the company

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• US Citizenship or Greencard is required due to US Government contract requirements
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP. PhD is preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in ML engineering with a proven track record of building models for large-scale systems
• Experience building and supporting knowledge graph and semantic representation systems
• Proven experience designing, building, evaluating, and optimizing Agentic AI systems, including reasoning loops, tool use, orchestration patterns, context management
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams
• Comfortable supporting production systems and debugging challenges in distributed systems
• Demonstrated effectiveness in using AI tooling to accelerate research and development workflows
• Growth mindset and low ego- you’re eager to pick up new tools and technologies, learn from others, and being open to changing course when it’s right
• Drive to foster a culture of collaboration, psychological safety, and technical excellence
• Strong advocate for inclusion in technical discussions at all levels

Preferred Qualifications:

• Start-up experience or comfort in 0→1 product environments.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes is a plus.
• Experience integrating machine learning models and data driven algorithms into larger system architectures.

Compensation Information

$200,000—$240,000 USD

Equal Opportunity Statement

Legion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to 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 laws.