Senior ML Engineer – ML & Applied AI

About the Role -------------- Gap Inc. is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer with 10+ years of experience to design, build, and scale production-grade machine learning and AI systems that power data-driven decision making across the enterprise. This role is focused on end-to-end ML system ownership, including data pipelines, feature engineering, model training, deployment, monitoring, and continuous optimization. You will lead the development of scalable ML platforms, drive best practices in MLOps, and enable reliable, high-performance model inference in both batch and real-time environments. The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering expertise with deep ML knowledge and has experience building robust, scalable ML systems in production, including modern applications involving large language models (LLMs) and agent-based AI systems. What You'll Do -------------- * Architect and build **scalable, production-grade ML systems** from experimentation to deployment and lifecycle management * Design and implement **end-to-end ML pipelines**, including data ingestion, feature engineering, training, validation, and inference * Develop and maintain **high-performance model serving systems** using APIs (e.g., FastAPI) for real-time and batch inference * Lead the design and implementation of **feature stores** and reusable feature pipelines across teams * Build and optimize **distributed data processing workflows** using Spark, Databricks, or similar platforms * Implement and enforce **MLOps best practices**, including CI/CD pipelines, automated retraining, model versioning, and experiment tracking * Design and manage **model monitoring and observability frameworks** to track performance, drift, latency, and system health * Drive strategies for **model retraining, drift detection, and continuous improvement** * Collaborate closely with data engineers, platform teams, and product stakeholders to integrate ML solutions into production systems * Contribute to the adoption of **modern AI capabilities**, including LLMs, vector databases, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic workflows * Ensure high standards of **code quality, testing, documentation, and reproducibility** Who You Are ----------- * Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field * 10+ years of experience in machine learning, software engineering, or related roles, with significant experience in **production ML systems** * Strong programming expertise in **Python** and solid software engineering fundamentals (data structures, system design, APIs) * Extensive experience with ML frameworks such as **scikit-learn, XGBoost, PyTorch, or TensorFlow** * Proven experience designing and deploying **scalable ML pipelines and services** in production * Hands-on experience with **model serving frameworks** and API development (e.g., FastAPI, Flask) * Strong experience with **containerization (Docker)** and orchestration platforms such as **Kubernetes** * Experience working with **cloud platforms** (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and building cloud-native ML solutions * Deep understanding of **ML lifecycle management**, including training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and retraining * Experience implementing **CI/CD pipelines** for ML workflows and managing version control systems (Git) * Strong experience with **SQL and distributed data processing frameworks** (e.g., Spark, PySpark) * Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to design scalable, maintainable systems