Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer (General Agents, Enterprise GenAI)

Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer (General Agents, Enterprise GenAI)

Full-Time 80100 - 97900 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Design and deploy cutting-edge AI agents to solve real-world enterprise challenges.
  • Company: Join Scale, a leader in innovative AI solutions with a collaborative culture.
  • Benefits: Comprehensive health coverage, flexible PTO, and personal development opportunities.
  • Other info: Dynamic team environment with excellent career growth and community events.
  • Why this job: Make a significant impact by shaping the future of enterprise AI technology.
  • Qualifications: 5+ years in machine learning, strong Python skills, and experience with AI systems.

The predicted salary is between 80100 - 97900 £ per year.

The General Agents team, part of Scale’s Enterprise organization, builds robust general agents for customer use cases and applications. The team sits at the intersection of frontier agent development and real-world deployment, translating state-of-the-art reasoning and agentic capabilities into reliable, production-grade systems that drive real economic value. Our agents are scalable systems built around recurring enterprise problem domains, with a strong emphasis on generalization, extensibility, and deployment across many customers.

As a Senior/Staff Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) on the General Agents team, you’ll play a critical role in designing, building, and deploying production-ready AI agents that solve high-impact enterprise problems. You will work across the full agent lifecycle—from model and system design to evaluation, deployment, and iteration—bridging cutting-edge agentic techniques with the constraints and requirements of real customer environments.

  • Design and implement end-to-end agent systems that combine LLM reasoning, tool use, memory, and control logic to solve recurring enterprise use cases.
  • Build scalable, reliable agent architectures that can be deployed across many customers with varying data, tools, and constraints.
  • Develop evaluation frameworks, datasets, environments, and metrics to measure agent performance, reliability, and business impact in production settings.
  • Collaborate closely with product managers, customers, data annotators, and other engineering teams to translate enterprise requirements into robust agent designs.
  • Productionize frontier agent techniques (e.g., planning, multi-step reasoning and tool-use, multi-agent patterns) into maintainable, observable systems.
  • Own deployment, monitoring, and iteration of agent systems, including failure analysis and continuous improvement based on real-world usage.
  • Contribute to technical direction and architectural decisions for general agent development best practices and methods, with increasing scope and leadership at the Staff level.

Benefits

  • Health & Wellbeing: Our holistic approach to supporting Scaliens includes comprehensive health coverage, dental and vision insurance, mental healthcare services, and more. PTO policies and accommodating schedules ensure you’ll get time off when you need it to relax and recharge.
  • Personal & Career Growth: Continuously learn and grow through annual learning & development stipend, attending leadership breakfasts, manager training, speaker series, and joining an ERG.
  • Building Scale Community: We welcome guests to our offices, and you can expect to see Scalien families and friends around. Join local happy hours, and accept invites to game nights, book clubs, and many other employee-led community events.
  • Parental Support: Balancing work and family is essential, and Scale understands the importance of having adequate leave policies in place to promote a healthy home and work life.

Qualifications

  • Ability to operate in ambiguous problem spaces, balancing research-driven approaches with pragmatic product constraints.
  • Strong communication skills and comfort working in customer-facing or cross-functional environments.
  • Experience building systems that integrate models with external tools, APIs, databases, and services.
  • Deep understanding of modern LLMs, prompt-, context-, and system-level optimization, and agentic system design.
  • Strong engineering fundamentals, supported by a Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 5+ years of experience building and deploying machine learning or AI systems for real-world, production use cases.
  • Proven proficiency in Python, including writing production-quality, testable, and maintainable code.
  • Hands-on experience building AI agents using modern generative AI stacks (OpenAI APIs, commercial or open-source LLMs).
  • Experience with agent frameworks, orchestration layers, or workflow systems (e.g., tool calling, planners, multi-agent setups).
  • Familiarity with evaluation, monitoring, and observability for LLM-powered systems in production.
  • Experience deploying ML systems in cloud environments and operating them at scale.
  • Experience fine-tuning or adapting foundation models using methods like supervised fine-tuning (SFT), reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR), and low-rank adaptation (LoRA) to improve agent performance on domain-specific tasks.
  • Interest in shaping the future of general-purpose enterprise agents and their real-world impact.

Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer (General Agents, Enterprise GenAI) employer: Scale AI

At Scale, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration among software and ML engineers. Our London-based team is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of AI technology while providing ample opportunities for professional growth and development, ensuring that every employee can contribute meaningfully to impactful projects. With a commitment to inclusivity and equal opportunity, we create an environment where everyone can thrive and bring their whole selves to work.

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Contact Details:

Scale AI Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer (General Agents, Enterprise GenAI)

Join Local Tech Meetups

Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Scale AI or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!

Contribute to Open Source Projects

Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Scale AI.

Tap into Online Developer Communities

Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Scale AI.

Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles

Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Scale AI that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!

We think you need these skills to ace Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer (General Agents, Enterprise GenAI)

Machine Learning
AI Systems Development
Production Deployment
LLM Optimization
Python Programming
Generative AI Stacks
Agent Frameworks

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.

Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Scale AI.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Scale AI and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!

Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!

How to prepare for a job interview at Scale AI

Brush Up on Your Coding Skills

For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.

Know Your Tools and Frameworks

Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Scale AI uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.

Showcase Your Projects

Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.

Prepare for Behavioural Questions

While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.