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Principal Machine Learning Engineer Jobs in California

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Principal Machine Learning Engineer information

See California salary details

$73K

$145.3K

$209.7K

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

As of Jul 29, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal machine learning engineer in California is $145,292.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $116,900.00 and $170,700.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What types of projects and responsibilities can a Principal Machine Learning Engineer typically expect in this role?

Principal Machine Learning Engineers are often tasked with leading the design, development, and deployment of large-scale machine learning models and systems that address key business challenges. In this role, you will collaborate closely with data scientists, engineers, and product managers to define project requirements, architect solutions, and ensure high-quality delivery. You may also guide research initiatives, oversee code and model reviews, and mentor junior engineers, helping to shape the technical direction of the team. Typical responsibilities can range from prototyping and optimizing algorithms to ensuring models are scalable, reliable, and aligned with organizational goals.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the Principal Machine Learning Engineer position, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you need advanced expertise in machine learning algorithms, statistical analysis, software engineering, and a strong background in computer science or related fields, often supported by a master's or PhD degree. Familiarity with tools such as Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), and relevant certifications strengthens technical capability. Leadership, strategic thinking, effective communication, and mentorship are vital soft skills for guiding teams and collaborating across departments. These competencies are essential for driving innovation, ensuring technical excellence, and influencing organizational AI initiatives.

Will MLE be replaced by AI?

Principal Machine Learning Engineers design, develop, and oversee AI and machine learning systems, and their roles involve understanding complex algorithms, data management, and model deployment. While AI automates certain tasks, MLE roles focus on building and maintaining AI infrastructure, which requires human expertise, critical thinking, and ongoing innovation that AI cannot fully replace. The role is expected to evolve alongside advancements in AI technology but remains essential for guiding AI development and ensuring ethical, effective implementation.

What does a Principal Machine Learning Engineer do?

A Principal Machine Learning Engineer leads the design, development, and deployment of machine learning models and systems. They set technical strategy, mentor engineers, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to solve complex AI challenges. Their role often includes researching new algorithms, optimizing model performance, and ensuring scalability in production environments. Additionally, they work closely with data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to align ML initiatives with business objectives.

How much do principal AI engineers make?

Principal AI engineers typically earn between $130,000 and $200,000 annually, with salaries varying based on experience, location, and industry. They often have advanced skills in machine learning, deep learning, and data science, and may receive bonuses or stock options as part of compensation packages.

What engineers make $300,000 a year?

Principal Machine Learning Engineers and senior data scientists in the tech industry often earn $300,000 or more annually, especially with extensive experience, advanced skills in deep learning and AI, and working at large technology companies or startups with competitive compensation packages. High salaries may also include bonuses, stock options, and other benefits.

What engineer makes $500,000 a year?

A Principal Machine Learning Engineer can earn $500,000 or more annually, especially with extensive experience, advanced skills in deep learning and data science, and working at large tech companies or in high-demand industries. Compensation often includes base salary, bonuses, and stock options, reflecting their seniority and expertise.
What job categories do people searching Principal Machine Learning Engineer jobs in California look for? The top searched job categories for Principal Machine Learning Engineer jobs in California are:
Infographic showing various Principal Machine Learning Engineer job openings in California as of July 2026, with employment types broken down into 90% Full Time, 6% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 87% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 8% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $145,292 per year, or $69.9 per hour.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Required, Work From Home

Ginas Tech Jobs

San Francisco, CA • Remote

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, PTO

Posted 20 days ago


Job description

Job Description

Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Required, Work From Home

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you are a deep technical authority responsible for designing and evolving the most critical ML systems in the company.  The Principal Machine Learning Engineer will operate across training, inference, evaluation, and infrastructure, solving the hardest architectural and performance problems.  While Technical Leads may own execution at the team level, you set the technical standard and shape how ML systems are built across the organization.  This is a hands-on, high-impact role focused on depth.  This position is 100% Remote.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer Responsibilities:

- Architect and build large-scale ML systems spanning data, training, evaluation, inference, and deployment.

- Design reproducible, high-performance training pipelines across GPU infrastructure.

- Architect inference systems that balance latency, throughput, cost, and reliability at scale.

- Design and maintain data systems for high-quality synthetic and real-world training data.

- Implement evaluation pipelines covering performance, robustness, safety, and bias, in partnership with research leadership.

- Own production deployment, including GPU optimization, memory efficiency, latency reduction, and scaling policies.

- Collaborate closely with application engineering to integrate ML systems cleanly into backend, mobile, and desktop products.

- Make pragmatic trade-offs and ship improvements quickly, learning from real usage.

- Work under real production constraints: latency, cost, reliability, and safety

Principal Machine Learning Engineer Outcomes:

- ML systems (training, inference, evaluation) are reliable, scalable, and meet defined performance targets.

- Models deployed to production achieve measurable quality improvements and meet user-impact goals.

- Production issues are proactively monitored, debugged, and resolved with clear root-cause analysis.

- Team and cross-functional collaborators benefit from clear guidance, best practices, and scalable ML solutions.

- Research-to-production cycles are efficient, safe, and continuously improve the product experience.

Qualifications

Principal Machine Learning Engineer Qualifications:

- Strong background in deep learning and transformer-based architectures.

- Artificial Intelligence (AI) experience required.

- Hands-on experience training, fine-tuning, or deploying large-scale ML models in production.

- Proficiency with at least one modern ML framework (e.g. PyTorch, JAX), and ability to learn others quickly.

- Experience with distributed training and inference frameworks (e.g. DeepSpeed, FSDP, Megatron, ZeRO, Ray).

- Strong software engineering fundamentals; you write robust, maintainable, production-grade systems.

- Experience with GPU optimization, including memory efficiency, quantization, and mixed precision.

- Comfort owning ambiguous, zero-to-one ML systems end-to-end.

- A bias toward shipping, learning fast, and improving systems through iteration.

- Experience with LLM inference frameworks such as vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, or FasterTransformer.

- Contributions to open-source ML or systems libraries.

- Background in scientific computing, compilers, or GPU kernels.

- Experience with RLHF pipelines (PPO, DPO, ORPO).

- Experience training or deploying multimodal or diffusion models.

- Experience with large-scale data processing (Apache Arrow, Spark, Ray).

Benefits include medical insurance, Dental, Vision, Savings Plan Options, PTO, etc.

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