Staff Machine Learning Engineer
- Level
- Staff
- Work type
- On-site · San Francisco
Not stated in the posting: salary, visa.
Open. First seen 2 October 2026.
About the role
Watney's standard text
Our Mission
Expand human ambition in the physical world.
Critical infrastructure is constrained by labor shortages, hazardous working conditions, and operational complexity. Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems that increase the speed and capacity of buildout, starting with data centers.
About the Role
At Watney, ML engineers turn a live fleet of robots into world class modals. The fleet produces large volumes of video from real work in the field, and turning that data into a model that performs better on the next deployment is one of the hardest problems at the company.
Our Machine Learning team members run training experiments, help curate and label the data behind them, and help evaluate what works on a real fleet. You'll build models that cover the gamut of real world challenges including perception, planning, navigation and manipulation.
What You’ll Do
- Own model quality end-to-end: dataset curation, training, and evaluation.
- Work with multimodal sensor data from Cameras, IMUs, LiDar and Odometry to shape the training set as the fleet grows.
- Train and evaluate policies, experiment with data, feature and architecture ablations.
- Deploy your best results to production and build the systems that guarantee low latency, 24/7 inference on a fleet of robots.
- Work with Teleoperations and Fleet Operations to get the data the models need.
You May Be a Good Fit If You:
- Trained large scale multimodal models on a fleet of GPUs using techniques such as video semantic segmentation, 6d pose estimation, VLAs and BEVs.
- Have owned a dataset end-to-end: what to collect, what to label, and what to cut.
- Write production training and inference code with Python, PyTorch or JAX, Triton.
- Have found and fixed a problem with a training run or a model's real-world performance, and can name the evidence that pointed to it.
- Experience working on Cluster management systems including Ray, Slurm or Kubernetes.
Watney's standard text
We’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive team. At Watney Robotics, we welcome people of all backgrounds and identities, and we make hiring decisions based on skills, experience, and potential. If you’re passionate about robotics but don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply!
Curious to learn more?
Follow us here on X and LinkedIn
What this role asks for
Particular to this role
Kubernetes
Rare in Watney's other 15 open postings.
Standard for data science / ML roles
Machine Learning · PyTorch · Python
Common in data science / ML postings at any company.
73% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Watney's standard text, folded away below.
Read against Watney's other open postings on this site.
The team: Machine Learning
This role is one of 5 open in Machine Learning.
WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS
Machine Learning (4 of 5), Python (4 of 5), PyTorch (4 of 5)
OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM
- Senior Research Engineer posted Sep 16
- Machine Learning Engineer posted Sep 16
- Software Engineer - Perception posted Jul 13
- Staff Software Engineer - ML Infrastructure posted Jul 13
From the team and dates on Watney's own job board.
Salary context
23 other open postings titled Staff Machine Learning Engineer state a salary: median USD 200,000 to USD 272,000 a year.
Similar jobs
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Plenful
Shares 4 skills: PyTorch, Kubernetes, Machine Learning… · Staff level · same city - Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Altana
Shares 4 skills: PyTorch, Kubernetes, Machine Learning… · Staff level · same country - Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Applied Intelligence) at Anduril Industries
Shares 4 skills: PyTorch, Kubernetes, Machine Learning… · same country - Sr. Machine Learning Engineer at PitchBook Data
Shares 4 skills: PyTorch, Kubernetes, Machine Learning… · same country - Machine Learning Engineer (Mid-Level) at Clera
Shares 4 skills: PyTorch, Kubernetes, Machine Learning… · same city - Senior Software Engineer - Tools at Watney
Also at this company
Is this your posting and you want it taken down? Email info@careerholo.com.