Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Python) | Applied AI
Remote-first in Germany | Berlin meetups | €90,000–€120,000
Zabel is partnering with a fast-growing technology company building a next-generation data intelligence platform for mission-critical environments across defence, law enforcement and enterprise.
We’re looking for a hands-on Machine Learning Engineer to build and productionize modern AI capabilities across text, vision, audio and other applied ML use cases. You’ll work with state-of-the-art and open-source models, taking them from experimentation and evaluation through to reliable production systems.
What you’ll be working on
- Evaluating and integrating open-source models for real product use cases
- Building and improving LLM-based applications
- Working across NLP, translation, speech-to-text/ASR, image and document understanding
- Fine-tuning, evaluating and optimizing existing models
- Building evaluation frameworks around quality, latency, reliability and cost
- Taking models from experimentation into production, deployment and monitoring
- Optimizing inference performance and operational cost
- Contributing hands-on to modern ML infrastructure and MLOps
What we’re looking for
- 4+ years in Machine Learning Engineering, Applied AI or a similar hands-on role
- Strong Python
- Practical experience with PyTorch, Transformers and Hugging Face
- Experience with LLMs, NLP, speech models or Generative AI
- Strong hands-on model evaluation and experimentation experience
- Experience with inference engines such as vLLM or SGLang, and platforms such as NVIDIA Triton or Ollama
- Knowledge of fine-tuning, prompting, model evaluation, inference and deployment
- Understanding of model encoding, quantization and associated trade-offs
- Strong engineering mindset and ability to turn experiments into reliable production systems
Nice to have: Kubernetes, KServe, Ray Serve, ONNX, TensorRT, geospatial AI/remote sensing, German (B1+), or experience in defence/public safety or regulated environments.
📍 Remote-first within Germany, with regular meetups in Berlin.
💰 Salary: €90,000–€120,000 base
🛂 Candidates must be eligible to work in Germany; export-control screening applies to certain programmes.
Interested? Apply directly or message me here on LinkedIn for a confidential conversation.