Machine Learning Engineer, Public Sector

The goal of a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Scale is to lead the design and deployment of agentic AI systems that operate in real-world, mission-critical government environments. On the Public Sector team, you’ll work at the intersection of agentic ML, systems engineering, and applied research, building foundational infrastructure that enables AI systems to reason, plan, and act reliably at national scale. Our Public Sector ML Team partners directly with U.S. defense and intelligence agencies to deploy AI into classified and regulated environments. Through flagship programs like Donovan and Thunderforge , we are advancing the next generation of agentic AI for geospatial reasoning, planning, and decision support. Staff Machine Learning Engineers play a central role in setting technical direction, owning core architectures, and translating ambitious ideas into production systems trusted by government operators. You will: Lead the architecture and implementation of agentic AI systems, with a focus on long-horizon reasoning, orchestration, and system-level reliability. Build and scale agents that perform complex geospatial reasoning, including interpreting, generating, and reasoning over maps and spatial data. Design and improve retrieval systems across large collections of static and semi-structured documents, enabling agents to surface high-signal context efficiently. Fine-tune and evaluate embedding models to improve recall and precision for mission-critical datasets. Design memory systems that allow agents to persist state, operate over long contexts, and learn from prior interactions. Own and evolve shared agentic infrastructure and core libraries, enabling reuse across teams, products, and Public Sector contracts. Define evaluation strategies for agentic systems, including robustness testing, failure-mode analysis, and regression testing in production environments. Partner closely with engineering managers, product leaders, and researchers to scope high-impac

Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) accelerates digital transformation so customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure. The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™️ platform protects thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location. Distributed across 160+ public exchanges globally and thousands of private exchanges at the edge, the SASE-based Zero Trust Exchange is the world’s largest in-line cloud security platform. We believe the future of work is Human + AI and are building an AI-native enterprise where human potential is amplified by machine intelligence to solve the world’s hardest security challenges. Driven by deep customer obsession, we are committed to the mission, outcome, and to each other. We bring these commitments to life through three core behaviors: ownership and collaboration, trust through outcomes and impact, and a challenge culture with ongoing feedback. Ready to make an impact at the company pioneering security transformation in the AI era? Join us at Zscaler. Role We are looking for a Senior Enterprise Applications Administrator to join our team. This is a hybrid role in San Jose, CA or Remote in Denver, CO, reporting to the Collaboration Solutions Manager in the IT Digital Employee Experience department. In this position, you will support and assist in driving the visionary innovation of Zscaler over the next decade, shaping the future of our technology across collaboration applications and the emerging AI space. You will work closely with support and executive support teams while leading a team to deliver cutting-edge services into both enterprise and FedRAMP environments. What you’ll do (Role Expectations) Develop and articulate the strategic vision for Google Workspace and MS365, aligning with organizational goals and industry best practices, while collaborating with our compliance team on FedRAMP compliance Lead the design, implementation, and optimization of Goog

Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) accelerates digital transformation so customers can be more agile, efficient, resilient, and secure. The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform protects thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location. Distributed across 200+ public data centers globally and thousands of private sites at the edge, the SASE-based Zero Trust Exchange is the world’s largest in-line cloud security platform. We believe the future of work is Human + AI and are building an AI-native enterprise where human potential is amplified by machine intelligence to solve the world’s hardest security challenges. Driven by deep customer obsession, we are committed to the mission, outcome, and to each other. We bring these commitments to life through three core behaviors: ownership and collaboration, trust through outcomes and impact, and a challenge culture with ongoing feedback. Ready to make an impact at the company pioneering security transformation in the AI era? Join us at Zscaler. Role We are looking for a Senior Enterprise Platforms & AI Systems Engineer to join our team. This is a hybrid role in San Jose, CA or Remote in Denver, CO, reporting to the Collaboration Solutions Manager in the IT Digital Employee Experience department. In this position, you will support and assist in driving the visionary innovation of Zscaler over the next decade, shaping the future of our technology across collaboration applications and the emerging AI space. You will work closely with support and executive support teams while leading a team to deliver cutting-edge services into both enterprise and FedRAMP environments. What you’ll do (Role Expectations) Develop and articulate the strategic vision for Google Workspace and MS365, aligning with organizational goals and industry best practices, while collaborating with our compliance team on FedRAMP compliance Lead the design, implementation, and optimization o

About Scale Scale’s mission is to develop reliable AI systems for the world’s most important decisions. As the leading AI data foundry, we provide the high-quality data and full-stack technologies that power the world’s most advanced models — fueling breakthroughs in generative AI, defense, and autonomous vehicles. We partner with leading enterprises and governments to bring AI into production that performs when it matters most, combining rigorous evaluation with full-stack deployment so our customers can build AI they can trust. About the Team Applied Intelligence Systems (AIS) is part of the Scale Generative AI Platform (SGP), focused on pushing the frontier of what agentic applications can do across diverse enterprise and government use cases. We build the infrastructure and tooling that power agentic AI in production, paired with applied ML research, design, and evaluation to ensure these systems perform reliably at the scale our customers demand. AIS spans multiple workstreams — agent evaluation and oversight, orchestration and tool-use infrastructure, model and systems optimization, and applied research on new agent capabilities — and this role is not scoped to any single one of them. We’re growing fast, with increasing traction across both commercial and public sector customers, and we’re just getting started — this team will define what dependable, production-grade agentic AI looks like. About the Role As a Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, you will operate across the full breadth of AIS’s technical needs — wherever the hardest ML problem in agentic AI happens to be that quarter. This could mean training and fine-tuning models, designing evaluation and observability systems, building improvement loops from production data, prototyping novel agent architectures, or designing internal systems and tooling that boost productivity across teams. You’re not tied to one team’s roadmap; you’re expected to move to where the technical leverage is highest, and t

The Public Sector software engineers (SWEs) create the core product building blocks forward-deployed teams use to develop agentic capabilities that function across multiple domains. SWEs responsibilities include building the systems required to ingest and process federal datasets to support real-time decision-making in contested environments. We develop novel agentic enabling capabilities that includes: Create multi-layered guardrails around agents Optimize data retrieval for agents Orchestrate fleets of asynchronous agents Automatically alerts users to deviations in data Illustrating how an agent reached a decision As a Senior Software Engineer, you will lead the development of a vertical feature or a horizontal capability to include defining requirements with stakeholders and implementation until it is accepted by the stakeholders. You will: Lead the design and implementation of scalable backend systems and distributed architectures for Federal customers. Manage the full lifecycle of feature development from requirement definition to deployment on classified networks. Direct the orchestration of asynchronous agent fleets to meet mission requirements. Lead customer engagements to translate mission needs into technical requirements. Own the communication with stakeholders to ensure implementation meets defined acceptance criteria. Conduct technical reviews and identify risks within machine learning infrastructure and model serving. Drive the platform roadmap by providing technical specifications for Federal product offerings. Ideally you will have: Full Stack Development: Proficiency in front-end, back-end development and infrastructure, including experience with modern web development frameworks, programming languages, and databases Cloud-Native Technologies: Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and experience in developing and deploying applications in a cloud-native environment. Understanding of containerization (e.g., Docker) and contai

The Public Sector software engineers (SWEs) create the core product building blocks forward-deployed teams use to develop agentic capabilities that function across multiple domains. SWEs responsibilities include building the systems required to ingest and process federal datasets to support real-time decision-making in contested environments. We develop novel agentic enabling capabilities that includes: Create multi-layered guardrails around agents Optimize data retrieval for agents Orchestrate fleets of asynchronous agents Automatically alerts users to deviations in data Illustrating how an agent reached a decision As a Software Engineer, you will own the development of a vertical feature or a horizontal capability to include defining requirements with stakeholders and implementation until it is accepted by the stakeholders. You will: Design and implement scalable backend systems for Federal customers using cloud-native AI infrastructure. Build features for agentic systems including multi-layered guardrails and data retrieval optimization. Develop data pipelines and machine learning infrastructure to make data sources accessible by agents. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to execute backend solutions for secure environments. Participate in customer engagements to understand requirements and deliver technical solutions. Define requirements with stakeholders and implement features until they are accepted. Contribute to the platform roadmap and product strategy for the Federal business. Ideally you will have: Full Stack Development: Proficiency in front-end, back-end development and infrastructure, including experience with modern web development frameworks, programming languages, and databases Cloud-Native Technologies: Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and experience in developing and deploying applications in a cloud-native environment. Understanding of containerization (e.g., Docker) and container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes