Founding ML Engineer (Spectrum)

About the Position

Many software engineers and AI agents face the challenge of finding specific answers to tough questions. Spectrum, a resident of JetBrains' startup incubator, aims to revolutionize the semantic layer space for software-building organizations by organizing knowledge in a unified ontology that AI agents can efficiently search through and reason over. We are looking for a top-class Founding ML Engineer who will help us shape the future of software development. You will own our AI and ML engineering stack and help define the research agenda for our team. Your technical vision and design decisions will directly shape the product and determine its success.

Responsibilities

• Designing and building the ML/LLM solution for data ingestion, knowledge extraction, retrieval, and subsequent reasoning.
• Creating the datasets, metrics, and pipelines that drive measurable improvements across the system.
• Architecting and improving agents for context retrieval, knowledge extraction, and data alignment, which includes prompt engineering, model selection, and inference optimization.
• Establishing MLOps practices, including orchestration, observability, and experiment tracking.
• Collaborating with the engineering team on system design and with JetBrains Research on the research agenda.
• Defining hiring criteria, growing the ML team, and shaping the ML team culture.

Requirements

• A proven track record as an ML/AI Lead.
• At least five years of experience in ML/AI systems, with at least two years focused on LLMs and generative AI.
• A deep understanding of the LLM ecosystem, including model architectures and fine-tuning approaches.
• Hands-on experience with:
  • Strong Python skills – Kotlin knowledge would be a plus.
  • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
  • Proficiency in English, both written and verbal.

Nice to Have

• Experience with ontologies, knowledge graphs, or graph-based reasoning.
• Experience in early-stage startups – you enjoy the zero-to-one phase.
• The ability to think strategically about product-led AI, beyond just training models in isolation.
• A background in code analysis, developer tools, or software engineering research.
• Experience with multi-agent systems or complex agentic workflows.
• Actively contributed to relevant open-source projects or publications.

We Offer

• A competitive salary and JetBrains benefits.
• A generous runway and corporate resources with startup autonomy.

About the Company

We are an equal opportunity employer. We know great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere. That’s why we do our best to create an open and inclusive workplace – one that welcomes everyone regardless of their background, identity, religion, age, accessibility needs, or orientation.

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