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Master Distiller Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Waabi

Distillation Lead

San Francisco, CA · On-site

$195K - $286K/yr

A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience; relevant hands-on experience in model distillation and ...

Waabi

Distillation Lead

San Francisco, CA

$195K - $286K/yr

A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience; relevant hands-on experience in model distillation and ...

Debut Biotech

Staff Process Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

OR Master's Degree + 8 years of experience; OR Bachelors Degree + 10 years of experience ... distillation, precipitation, chromatography, liquid/liquid extraction, crystallization, and drying.

Debut Biotech

Staff Process Engineer

San Diego, CA · On-site

OR Master's Degree + 8 years of experience; OR Bachelors Degree + 10 years of experience ... distillation, precipitation, chromatography, liquid/liquid extraction, crystallization, and drying.

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All JobsMaster Distiller JobsMaster Distiller Jobs in California

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See California salary details

$12

$57

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How much do master distiller jobs pay per hour?

As of Aug 12, 2026, the average hourly pay for master distiller in California is $57.26, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $48.89 and $65.24 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are some typical daily responsibilities for a master distiller?

A Master Distiller's daily responsibilities often include overseeing all aspects of spirit production, from selecting raw materials and monitoring fermentation to managing distillation and ensuring product quality. They frequently test samples, adjust recipes, and troubleshoot any issues with equipment or processes. Master Distillers also supervise and train production staff, maintain compliance with safety and industry regulations, and collaborate with product development or marketing teams. This multifaceted role requires a blend of hands-on technical work, leadership, and strategic planning to consistently deliver exceptional products.

What does a master distiller do?

A Master Distiller oversees the production of spirits, ensuring quality, consistency, and innovation in the distillation process. They manage raw ingredient selection, fermentation, distillation, aging, and blending while maintaining compliance with industry regulations. Additionally, they often serve as the face of the brand, engaging in product development, marketing, and public relations.

What are the most commonly searched types of Master Distiller jobs in California? The most popular types of Master Distiller jobs in California are:
What are popular job titles related to Master Distiller jobs in California? For Master Distiller jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Master Distiller jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Master Distiller jobs in California are:
Master Distiller jobs near you
Infographic showing various Master Distiller job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 83% Full Time, 12% Part Time, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 91% In-person, and 9% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $119,107 per year, or $57.3 per hour.

Distillation Lead

Waabi

San Francisco, CA • On-site

$195K - $286K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, PTO

Re-posted 15 days ago

Job description

Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is the leader in Physical AI. With a world-class team, we're unlocking the next era of autonomous transportation with technology that's powering commercial autonomous trucks and robotaxis. Waabi is backed by and partners with world leaders in AI, automotive, logistics, and deep tech.

With offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, Waabi is growing quickly and looking for diverse, innovative and collaborative candidates who want to impact the world in a positive way. To learn more visit: www.waabi.ai

Waabi's Physical AI platform is powered by state of the art ML models which must be deployed efficiently across diverse use-cases, from onboard vehicle inference to large-scale simulation. As the Distillation Lead, you will own the strategy and execution for distillation across Waabi's AI stack, ensuring our most capable models run efficiently in every deployment context. You will partner closely with ML Platform, Infrastructure, Onboard Autonomy, and Simulation teams to deliver compressed models that meet the performance requirements of both real-time onboard systems and high-throughput simulation pipelines.
 

You will...

- Define and drive the technical strategy for model distillation and compression across Waabi's AI stack - spanning perception, world models, and planning - with an eye toward both onboard deployment and simulation use-cases.

- Design, implement, and scale state-of-the-art distillation and efficiency pipelines, which may include: 

  • Distillation for generative models (diffusion, autoregressive, flow-matching, video models)

  • Quantization-aware training (QAT) and post-training quantization (PTQ)

  • Knowledge distillation (feature-level, response-based, and relation-based)

  • Structured and unstructured pruning and sparsification

  • Low-rank factorization and efficient architecture design

  • Speculative decoding and other inference-time efficiency techniques

- Collaborate closely with ML Platform, Infrastructure, Onboard, Autonomy, and Simulation teams to integrate compressed models into production pipelines and meet latency, memory, and throughput targets across deployment contexts.

- Define rigorous benchmarks and evaluation frameworks to characterize efficiency vs. quality trade-offs across models and hardware targets.

- Mentor and guide researchers and engineers working in the distillation and model efficiency space, setting a high technical bar and fostering a culture of rigorous experimentation.

- Champion best practices for model compression across the organization; disseminate knowledge through internal design reviews, documentation, and technical talks.

- Stay at the cutting edge of model efficiency research; contribute to the broader scientific community through publications and open-source contributions.

Qualifications:

- Deep distillation expertise: You have extensive hands-on experience designing and implementing distillation, quantization, pruning, and model compression techniques for large-scale neural networks, with demonstrated impact in production settings.

- Strong research and engineering foundation: A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience; relevant hands-on experience in model distillation and efficiency is what matters most. Expert Python and PyTorch (or JAX) skills with experience in large-scale distributed training.

- Technical leadership: You have a proven track record of setting technical direction and driving projects from conception to production. You inspire and elevate those around you through deep technical expertise and mentorship.

- Cross-functional collaboration: You have experience working closely with infrastructure, platform, and autonomy teams to deploy compressed models under real engineering constraints.

- Clear communicator: You can communicate complex technical trade-offs clearly to diverse audiences and drive alignment across research and engineering teams.

Bonus:

- Experience with hardware-aware optimization (TensorRT, ONNX, custom CUDA kernels, hardware-specific quantization).

- Publications at top-tier ML/CV venues (NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ICLR, ECCV) in model compression, efficient deep learning, or related areas.

- Experience distilling large generative models (diffusion models, LLMs, VLMs, or video models).

- Background in autonomous vehicles or robotics.

The US yearly salary range for this role is: $195,000 - $286,000 USD in addition to competitive perks & benefits. Waabi (US) Inc.'s yearly salary ranges are determined based on several factors in accordance with the Company's compensation practices. The salary base range is reflective of the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations.  Note: The Company provides additional compensation for employees in this role, including equity incentive awards and an annual performance bonus.
 

Perks/Benefits:
- Competitive compensation and equity awards.
- Health and Wellness benefits encompassing Medical, Dental and Vision coverage (for full-time employees only).
- Unlimited Vacation.
- Flexible hours and Work from Home support.
- Daily drinks, snacks and catered meals (when in office).
- Regularly scheduled team building activities and social events both on-site, off-site & virtually.
- As we grow, this list continues to evolve! 

Waabi is a technology start-up building technologies to transform the way the world moves. Join our talented team to be a part of the future and to make an impact!

Waabi is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a supportive, inclusive, and accessible workplace for all our employees. We seek applicants of all backgrounds and identities, across race, color, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry, age, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military or veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, caregiver status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law. We make workplace accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities as required by applicable law. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process please let our recruiting team know.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
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