Applied AI Software Engineer

Hybrid role: 2 days/week in office

Role Overview

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at MediaAlpha you will lead the design and development of LLM-powered applications for our internal teams and ad serving platform. You will be accountable for end-to-end systems: owning strategy architecture implementation and operations. You will collaborate with engineering product and business stakeholders to deliver intelligent systems that solve real business problems.

The ideal candidate is a strong engineer with hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications in production who works well across organizational boundaries and improves the conditions of any area they are in. We are an intentionally small organization designed for agility speed and workability.

Responsibilities

• Own the full software development lifecycle of LLM-powered systems from requirements through production deployment and operational health.
• Design and implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems tool-use patterns and multi-step reasoning workflows.
• Integrate LLM-based services into MediaAlphas products internal tools and data ecosystem.
• Drive architectural decisions balancing capability cost latency and maintainability.
• Establish evaluation frameworks and metrics to measure application quality and business impact.
• Work directly with stakeholders to define product capabilities and develop new features and integrations.
• Be a champion of instilling excellence in coding testing and quality into the team and culture.
• Mentor engineers on LLM application development patterns and best practices.

Requirements

• 9 years of experience in software development.
• Experience designing and owning systems end-to-end including 3-tier architectures data flows APIs deployments and operational health.
• Strong programming skills in Python including software engineering methodologies and best practices.
• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered features in production.
• Experience with RAG architectures including vector databases embedding models and retrieval strategies.
• Practical prompt engineering skills with demonstrated ability to iterate and evaluate quality.
• Familiarity with core ML concepts (classification evaluation metrics embeddings) and the judgment to know when traditional ML approaches outperform LLM-based solutions.
• Experience with agent frameworks and tool-use patterns (MCP function calling etc.).
• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS preferred: EC2 S3 Bedrock).
• A self-starter who works independently is comfortable with ambiguity and pays careful attention to detail.
• Experience collaborating with engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to articulate and communicate clearly concisely and thoughtfully.
• Organized and self-motivated.
• B.S. required preferably in a technical discipline (e.g. computer science).

Compensation & Benefits

We are excited to offer a total base compensation of $170000 to $260000 per year for this position based on experience and qualifications. But thats not all - as a valued member of our team you will also have access to an array of top-notch benefits including:

• An annual discretionary bonus program and participation in our Restricted Stock Unit program
• 100% Employer-paid health dental and vision insurance for you your dependents and spouse or registered domestic partner
• 100% Employer paid long term disability and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with matching contributions to help you plan for your future
• Open Paid Time Off policy with a birthday day off and 11 holidays
• Professional development reimbursement
• Cell Phone Wellness and Internet expense reimbursement along with a subscription to the Calm App
• 100% fully paid parental leave for team members up to 22 weeks for the primary caregiver and 12 weeks for the secondary caregiver
• Dog-friendly offices (LA and AZ) along with a $300 pet adoption reimbursement

Diversity Equity and Inclusion

MediaAlpha is committed to fostering cultivating and maintaining a culture of diversity equity and inclusion. Our philosophy and actions are built on the premise that as an employer and citizens of our communities we can create opportunities for lasting change.

Fair Chance

MediaAlpha will consider qualified applicants including those with criminal histories in a manner consistent with state and local Fair Chance laws. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans in our application process. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability please contact us at or .