Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Join Axon and be a Force for Good. At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other. Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter. Your Impact Are you excited to build AI products that solve meaningful, real-world problems and make a positive impact at scale? As a Machine Learning Engineer at Axon, you’ll help build AI solutions that are transforming public safety and advancing our mission to Protect Life. You’ll work alongside talented ML engineers and scientists to bring new AI capabilities to products such as Fleet, Draft One, Axon Air, VR, and more—supporting the training, evaluation, testing, and deployment of machine learning models across Axon devices and the cloud. You’ll be part of a multidisciplinary team tackling challenging problems across a broad range of AI domains, from computer vision and speech recognition to natural language understanding and generative AI. You’ll work at the intersection of cutting-edge research and real-world product development, where AI systems need to be accurate, scalable, secure, responsible, and dependable in the moments that matter. This role also offers significant room to grow your technical scope and influence. You’ll have opportunities to explore emerging AI technologies, work across multiple product areas, learn from experienced engineers and scientists, and take ownership of increasingly complex systems. As the team and Axon’s AI capabilities grow, you’ll have the opportunity to shape technical direction, mentor others, and develop into a technical leader. What You’ll Do Location: Hybrid from our office in Seattle, Washington. Reports to: Manager, Machine Learning Engineering - Turn emerging AI research into real products. Partner with scientists, engineers, and product managers to rapidly prototype new ideas, build proof-of-concepts, and help determine which technologies can become the next generation of Axon AI experiences. - Build AI systems that operate at real-world scale. Architect and develop the infrastructure needed to train, evaluate, deploy, monitor, and continuously improve models running across Axon’s cloud and device ecosystem. - Work across the modern AI stack. Tackle engineering challenges spanning model training and fine-tuning, large-scale evaluation, inference optimization, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and production ML systems. - Help build the platform behind Axon AI. Design reusable platforms, infrastructure, and developer tooling that make it faster and easier for scientists and engineers to experiment, evaluate ideas, and move models from research into production. - Advance how we build with generative AI. Explore techniques for evaluating, fine-tuning, optimizing, and operating large models, including approaches such as model distillation, quantization, and scalable evaluation. - Solve challenging edge-and-cloud ML problems. Help bridge the gap between powerful cloud-based AI and models running in resource-constrained environments, balancing model quality, latency, reliability, privacy, and cost. - Build secure and privacy-preserving AI systems. Architect solutions that enable models to continuously improve while maintaining rigorous standards for security, privacy, and responsible use of data. - Collaborate closely with ML scientists. Translate state-of-the-art research into robust engineering systems and help develop new training, evaluation, and deployment techniques that can be applied across multiple Axon products. - Own meaningful technical problems end to end. Go beyond implementing individual features—you’ll have opportunities to influence architecture, make key technical decisions, and see your work progress from an early experiment to technology used in real products. - Raise the engineering bar. Help establish best practices for ML engineering, architecture, testing, observability, reproducibility, and responsible AI as Axon’s AI organization continues to scale. Grow Your Career at Axon - Expand your AI breadth. Work across computer vision, speech, NLP, generative AI, edge ML, and cloud ML infrastructure rather than being limited to a single model or domain. - Deepen your technical expertise. Take on difficult systems problems at the intersection of machine learning, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and production software engineering. - Grow your ownership and influence. Progress from owning individual systems to shaping architectures, technical roadmaps, and engineering practices used across teams and products. - Learn across disciplines. Work closely with ML scientists, product teams, and experienced engineers, gaining exposure to both advanced research and the realities of shipping AI at scale. - Build technical leadership. As you grow, you’ll have opportunities to mentor engineers, lead technical initiatives, influence cross-team decisions, and help define how AI is built at Axon. What You Bring - Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Electronics, Mathematics, or another highly technical field. - 6+ years of software engineering experience, including a proven track record of deploying AI/ML models to production in the cloud. - Strong experience with cloud architecture and infrastructure as code. - Proficiency in Python and C++, with experience using ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow. - Advanced, hands-on knowledge of Linux environments and systems. - Strong problem-solving skills and the curiosity to dive deep into complex system architectures. - Excellent software architecture and design skills, with a focus on building robust, scalable, maintainable systems. - Ability to communicate effectively and collaborate across disciplines with scientists, engineers, and product managers. Preferred - Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Electronics, Mathematics, or another highly technical field. - Experience with LLMOps, including model evaluation, monitoring, quantization, distillation/teacher-student approaches, and production deployment. - Hands-on experience fine-tuning and optimizing large-scale models. - Familiarity with model encryption, privacy-preserving machine learning, and secure AI techniques. Benefits that Benefit You - Competitive salary and 401k with employer match - Discretionary paid time off - Paid parental leave for all - Medical, Dental, Vision plans - Fitness Programs - Emotional & Mental Wellness support - Learning & Development programs - And yes, we have snacks in our offices Benefits listed herein may vary depending on the nature of your employment and the location where you work Location: This role is based out of our Seattle, WA office and follows a hybrid schedule. We rely on in-person collaboration and ask that team members work onsite Tuesdays through Fridays, with the flexibility to work remotely on Mondays, unless there is an approved workplace accommodation. We believe that connection fuels innovation, and our in-office culture is designed to foster meaningful teamwork, mentorship, and shared success. #LI-Hybrid Axon is a total compensation company, meaning compensation is made up of base pay, bonus, and stock awards. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: level, function, training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs, geographic market, and often a combination of all these factors. Our benefits offer an array of options to help support you physically, financially and emotionally through the big milestones and in your everyday life. To see more details on our benefits offerings please visit https://www.axon.com/careers. Base Pay Range $150,750—$241,200 USD Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long-term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve. Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Important Notes The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions. Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment. We collect personal information from applicants to evaluate candidates for employment. You may request access, deletion, or exercise other CCPA rights at axongreenhousesupport@axon.com or via our Axon Privacy Web Form. For more information, please see the Your California Privacy Rights section of our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment. We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. 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