Machine Learning Engineer Specialist

ZS Associates - Thousand Oaks, CA

Full-time - Mid Level

Remote - Thousand Oaks, CA

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

About the position

ZS is a management consulting and technology firm dedicated to transforming global healthcare and beyond. Our most valuable asset is our people, and we pride ourselves on fostering an environment where passion can change lives. At ZS, you will work alongside a powerful collective of thinkers and experts, shaping solutions from start to finish. We believe that making an impact requires a different approach, which is why we encourage you to elevate your ideas into actions and define your own path while pursuing cutting-edge work. Our collaborative partnerships with clients focus on developing products that create value and deliver results across critical business areas, including portfolio strategy, customer insights, research and development, operational and technology transformation, and marketing strategy. As part of ZS's Scaled AI practice, you will be involved in creating continuous business value for clients through innovative machine learning, deep learning, and engineering capabilities. This role allows you to collaborate with data scientists to create state-of-the-art AI models, utilize cutting-edge ML platforms, and manage the complete ML lifecycle. You will design and implement technical features, collaborate with client-facing teams, and ensure the highest quality of deliverables by adhering to architecture and design guidelines. Your contributions will include writing production-ready code, conducting code reviews, and mentoring technical talent within the team. This position is ideal for those who dare to think differently and are passionate about making a significant impact in the healthcare sector.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement technical features leveraging best practices for the technology stack being used.
• Collaborate with client-facing teams to understand solution context and contribute to technical requirement gathering and analysis.
• Work with technical architects on the team to validate design and implementation approach.
• Write production-ready code that is easily testable, understood by other developers, and accounts for edge cases and errors.
• Ensure the highest quality of deliverables by following architecture/design guidelines, coding best practices, and conducting periodic design/code reviews.
• Write unit tests as well as higher-level tests to handle expected edge cases and errors gracefully, as well as happy paths.
• Use bug tracking, code review, version control, and other tools to organize and deliver work.
• Participate in scrum calls and agile ceremonies, effectively communicating work progress, issues, and dependencies.
• Research and evaluate the latest technologies through rapid learning, conducting proofs-of-concept, and creating prototype solutions.
• Support the project architect in designing modules/components of the overall project/product architecture.
• Break down large features into estimable tasks, lead estimation, and defend them with clients.
• Implement complex features with limited guidance from the engineering lead.
• Systematically debug code issues/bugs using stack traces, logs, monitoring tools, and other resources.
• Perform code/script reviews of senior engineers in the team.
• Mentor and groom technical talent within the team.

Requirements

• At least 5+ years of relevant hands-on experience in deploying and productionizing ML models at scale.
• Expertise in designing, configuring, and using ML Engineering platforms like Sagemaker, MLFlow, Kubeflow, or other platforms.
• Experience with big data technologies such as Hive, Spark, Hadoop, and queuing systems like Apache Kafka, Rabbit MQ, or AWS Kinesis.
• Ability to quickly adapt to new technology and innovate in creating solutions.
• Ability to independently run POCs on new technologies and document findings to share.
• Strong proficiency in at least one programming language such as PySpark, Python, Java, or Scala, along with programming basics in data structures.
• Hands-on experience in building metadata-driven, reusable design patterns for data pipeline, orchestration, and ingestion patterns (batch, real-time).
• Experience in designing and implementing solutions on distributed computing and cloud services platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Hands-on experience building CI/CD pipelines and awareness of practices for application monitoring.

Nice-to-haves

• AWS/Azure Solutions Architect certification with an understanding of the broader AWS/Azure stack.
• Understanding of DevOps CI/CD, data security, and experience in designing on cloud platforms.
• Willingness to travel to other global offices as needed to work with clients or other internal project teams.

Benefits

• Comprehensive total rewards package including health and well-being benefits.
• Financial planning support.
• Annual leave and personal growth opportunities.
• Professional development programs and multiple career progression options.
• Flexible and connected work environment allowing a combination of work from home and on-site presence.