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Machine Learning Engineer Associate Jobs in San Diego, CA

SwiftCruit

Lead Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$200K/yr

... associate, or cashier, you are taking a step towards an opportunity that can help you learn, grow ... Engineer, Machine Learning Operations, with minimal guidance, works independently and with ...

Seasats

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$180K - $250K/yr

Senior Machine Learning Engineer Location: San Diego, CA (in-office) Salary Range: $180,000 - $250,000 / yr + stock options, 401k matching, and other benefits Role Overview: Seasats' vehicles operate ...

Seasats

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$180K - $250K/yr

Senior Machine Learning Engineer Location: San Diego, CA (in-office) Salary Range: $180,000 - $250,000 / yr + stock options, 401k matching, and other benefits Role Overview: Seasats' vehicles operate ...

FICO

Lead Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

$122K - $192K/yr

Industry experience with a proven success record in analytic software, data engineering, or machine learning; experience working with cloud-based and distributed architectures, large real-world ...

Apple Inc.

Machine Learning Engineer- Gen AI

San Diego, CA · On-site

$142.30 - $214.30/hr

Operations and Supply Chain Product Operations partners with a variety of different engineering and operations teams; our team leads development of machine learning solutions. We deliver projects ...

Seasats

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA

$180K - $250K/yr

Senior Machine Learning Engineer Location: San Diego, CA (in-office) Salary Range: $180,000 - $250,000 / yr + stock options, 401k matching, and other benefits Role Overview: Seasats' vehicles operate ...

AppFolio

Sr. Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA

$111K - $152K/yr

Who We Are Looking For We're hiring a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to design and ship the next generation of voice and conversational AI agents within Realm-X. This role helps define AppFolio ...

AppFolio

Sr. Machine Learning Engineer

San Diego, CA

$111K - $152K/yr

Who We Are Looking For We're hiring a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to design and ship the next generation of voice and conversational AI agents within Realm-X. This role helps define AppFolio ...

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All JobsMachine Learning Engineer Associate JobsMachine Learning Engineer Associate Jobs in San Diego, CA

Machine Learning Engineer Associate information

See San Diego, CA salary details

$44.1K

$87.7K

$140.1K

How much do machine learning engineer associate jobs pay per year?

As of Aug 12, 2026, the average yearly pay for machine learning engineer associate in San Diego, CA is $87,736.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $69,500.00 and $100,900.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are some common challenges faced by machine learning engineer associates when deploying models to production?

Machine Learning Engineer Associates often encounter challenges such as ensuring model scalability, managing data pipeline reliability, and addressing issues with model drift after deployment. Collaborating closely with data engineers and software developers is essential to integrate models seamlessly into existing systems. Additionally, balancing model performance with resource constraints and maintaining clear documentation for reproducibility are important aspects of the role. Gaining familiarity with deployment tools and best practices can help overcome these hurdles.

What is a machine learning engineer associate?

Machine Learning Engineer Associates are entry-level professionals who help design, build, and maintain machine learning models and systems. They typically work under the guidance of senior engineers, assisting in data preprocessing, model training, and testing. Their responsibilities may include implementing algorithms, evaluating model performance, and deploying solutions to production environments. This role requires a strong foundation in programming, statistics, and machine learning principles, often acquired through education or internships.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a machine learning engineer associate, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Machine Learning Engineer Associate, you need a solid understanding of programming (especially Python), mathematics, and foundational machine learning concepts, typically supported by a relevant degree or coursework. Familiarity with tools and frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and experience with version control systems such as Git are essential. Strong problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and a collaborative mindset help you work effectively within technical teams. These competencies ensure you can develop, implement, and improve machine learning models that deliver actionable insights and drive business value.
What are the most commonly searched types of Machine Learning Engineer jobs in San Diego, CA? The most popular types of Machine Learning Engineer jobs in San Diego, CA are:
What are popular job titles related to Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs in San Diego, CA? For Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs in San Diego, CA, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs in San Diego, CA look for? The top searched job categories for Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs in San Diego, CA are:
What cities near San Diego, CA are hiring for Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs? Cities near San Diego, CA with the most Machine Learning Engineer Associate job openings:
Machine Learning Engineer Associate jobs near you
Infographic showing various Machine Learning Engineer Associate job openings in San Diego, CA as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 74% Full Time, 22% Part Time, 1% Temporary, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 89% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 9% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $87,736 per year, or $42.2 per hour.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer

AppFolio

San Diego, CA

Full-time

Re-posted 13 days ago

AppFolio rating

7.2

Company rating: 7.2 out of 10

Based on 8 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

183rd of 243 rated software companies

Job description

Hi, We're AppFolio
We're innovators, changemakers, and collaborators. We're more than just a software company — we're building the AI-native platform where the real estate industry comes to do business. We're transforming Property Management; how property managers operate, how residents live, and how intelligence flows across an entire industry.
Realm-X is AppFolio's AI-native platform powering this transformation. It enables a new generation of intelligent capabilities across our products, including Realm-X Assistant (copilot), Flows (AI Agentic workflows) and Performers (autonomous AI Agents). Realm-X serves as both a foundation for internal teams to build and scale AI-powered products, and a core layer delivering intelligent, high-impact experiences directly to our customers.
At its core, Realm-X is built on a structured domain ontology and a set of shared business primitives—such as transactions, actions, reports, metrics, and skills—that enable AI systems to deeply understand and operate across the full context of property management workflows. This foundation allows us to build context-aware, action-oriented AI systems that go beyond simple assistance to power real automation and decision-making.
Who We Are Looking For
We're seeking a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to help define and lead the next generation of AI systems within Realm-X, and to drive AppFolio's long-term autonomous Real Estate Performance Management (RPM) platform — autonomous AI agents that can deliver property management performance.
This is a company-impact role. You will own mission-critical AI capabilities, shape long-term technical strategy, and act as a technical visionary and advisor across teams and leadership.
You'll operate at the intersection of traditional machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI, building systems that go beyond AI assistance into execution, automation, and optimization.
This role is for someone who doesn't just build systems — but redefines how they should be built.
Your Impact
  • Architect & Lead: Help define the technical vision and architecture for AI systems across Realm-X in partnership with senior leadership.
  • Scale Intelligent AI Agents: Design and deploy advanced AI Agentic systems that combine reasoning, planning, and execution, including multi-agent orchestration across specialist agents (e.g., maintenance, leasing, accounting, collections).
  • Improve the Foundation: Establish platform primitives and abstractions to enable context-aware, action-oriented AI that goes beyond simple assistance to true automation. Improve the standards for end-to-end ML systems: data collection, model training, evaluation, deployment, and inference infrastructure.
  • Production Excellence: Architect and build scalable, multi-modal, and real-time AI applications, ensuring high-quality deployment standards.
  • ML for Autonomous Property Management: Drive AppFolio's transition toward autonomous property management operations. Use existing LLMs today and instrument the proprietary data collection now that will let us selectively train, fine-tune, and RL-optimize open source LLM and SLM for the RPM domain — optimizing performance, latency, and cost.
  • Reinforcement Learning for Agent Policies: Build the data and feedback loops needed to enable Reinforcement Learning over agent action policies in the partially observable, high-stakes property management environment.
Qualifications
  • Systems thinker: You think in terms of systems, platforms, and long-term leverage, not just features.
  • Production builder: You've built and scaled ML/AI systems in production with meaningful business impact.
  • Ambiguity: You operate effectively in high ambiguity, turning unclear problems into a clear direction.
  • Influence: You've led or influenced large, cross-team technical initiatives.
  • Originality: You introduce new ideas, architectures, or paradigms — not just implement existing ones.
  • Owner-operator: You bring a founder / owner-operator mindset: you take ownership, act with urgency, and focus on outcomes.
  • Pace: You have a strong desire to move fast and deliver impact, while maintaining sound engineering judgment.
  • Collaboration: You are humble, collaborative, and low-ego, and you elevate those around you.
  • Sustainability: You value work-life balance as a foundation for sustained high performance.
  • Vertical conviction: You bring genuine interest in winning a specific industry vertical (real estate) rather than chasing horizontal AI hype.
Must Have
  • Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field (required).
  • 10+ years of experience building software systems, with significant focus on ML/AI (or equivalent impact).
  • Combined academic and industry track record: Published research and shipped production systems.
  • Deep ML expertise: Traditional Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Generative AI / LLMs (prompting, fine-tuning, RAG, agents, tool and skills use).
  • LLM post-training: Direct, hands-on experience with LLM post-training — SFT, RLHF, DPO, and/or RL — at non-trivial scale.
  • Full ML lifecycle: Strong understanding of data extraction, model training, evaluation, deployment, and integration into production software.
  • Core stack: Expert in Python, PyTorch, NumPy, AWS, Docker, SQL, embeddings, and RAG.
  • Agent tooling:

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