Senior AI/ML Engineer (P4369)

84.51° Overview:

84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company. We help The Kroger Co., consumer packaged goods companies, agencies, publishers and affiliates create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers across the path to purchase.

Powered by cutting-edge science, we utilize first-party retail data from more than 62 million U.S. households sourced through the Kroger Plus loyalty card program to fuel a more customer-centric journey using 84.51° Insights, 84.51° Loyalty Marketing and our retail media advertising solution, Kroger Precision Marketing.

Join us at 84.51°!

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Senior AI/ML Engineer (AI Enablement) P4369

Cincinnati / Chicago

SUMMARY

The Senior AI/ML Engineer role requires a unique mix of software engineering and machine learning skills necessary to create, deploy and maintain computationally efficient foundation model implementations, frameworks, tools and end-to-end solutions. This role has a specific focus on small language models (SLMs), large language models (LLMs), and embedding models development within our foundation models team. A strong understanding of transformer architectures, distributed training, model optimization, and production-scale model serving along with DevOps & MLOps best practices that will scale across enterprise deployments is critical to success.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build core capabilities on medium to large foundation model projects that can span months, including pre-training, fine-tuning, and optimization of SLMs/LLMs/embedding models.
• Leverage known patterns, frameworks, and tools for automating & deploying foundation model solutions using Triton/vLLM serving infrastructure
• Develop new tools, processes and operational capabilities to monitor and analyze foundation model performance, inference latency, throughput, and data accuracy in production environments
• Work with researchers to optimize and scale foundation model training and inference using distributed GPU clusters and best practices in DevOps & MLOps
• Abstract foundation model solutions as reusable packages, APIs, or components that can be deployed across GCP and Azure cloud environments
• Build, steward, and maintain production-grade solutions (robust, reliable, maintainable, observable, scalable, performant) to manage and serve foundation models at enterprise scale
• Research state-of-the-art foundation model architectures, training techniques, fine-tuning methodologies, and serving optimizations to identify new opportunities for implementation across the enterprise
• Understand business requirements and trade-off model size, inference cost, latency, and accuracy to maximize value and translate research into consumable foundation model products or services
• Reduce time to delivery through automated model training pipelines, continuous integration for model updates, and implement continuous monitoring of model performance and drift
• Apply appropriate documentation, version control, and other internal communication practices for foundation model development lifecycle
• Make time-sensitive decisions regarding model deployment, scaling, and performance optimization and escalate urgent production issues to leads and people leaders

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Applied Statistics, or related field.
• 2-3 years of experience developing cloud-based software solutions and an understanding of design for scalability, performance, and reliability.
• 2-3 years of experience using advanced algorithms, programming languages, or technologies
• 2+ yrs hands-on experience building large-scale foundation models (SLMs/LLMs/embeddings), preferably as a data scientist;
• 2+ years of experience in foundation model development preferred
• 2+ years of experience in tech consulting, retail or related professional services preferred
• Hands-on experience in the full end to end SDLC developing foundation model solutions that scale and leverage CI/CD and MLOps to develop, test, and deploy.
• Experience building large-scale foundation model solutions that have been successfully delivered to stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills, particularly on technical topics. Strong time and project management skills; the ability to balance multiple, simultaneous work items and prioritize as necessary.
• Knowledge of transformer architectures and foundation model training methods is highly preferred.
• Working experience with PyTorch framework and open-source LLM fin