Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer, ML Platform and Systems Architecture

Position Overview

The work we do at Autodesk touches nearly every person on the planet. By creating software tools for making buildings, machines, and even the latest movies, we influence and empower some of the most creative people in the world to solve problems that matter.

Autodesk is seeking a Senior Principal ML Engineer, ML Platform and Systems Architecture to define and drive the technical strategy for large-scale machine learning platforms and systems. This is a top-level engineering leadership role for a technical authority who can shape multi-year architecture, influence engineering standards across teams, and lead major platform initiatives that connect research, product, and business goals.

You will be responsible for driving the evolution of the systems that enable machine learning across Autodesk, including training infrastructure, data platforms, evaluation and experimentation systems, model serving frameworks, and operational excellence for production ML. You will work across organizational boundaries to guide decisions, resolve hard technical challenges, and ensure that platform investments are aligned with long-term product and business outcomes.

This role is fully remote-friendly, with team members distributed across the US and Canada.

Location: US or Canada Remote

Responsibilities

• Define and lead technical strategy for a domain or large-scale platform supporting machine learning systems
• Drive architecture decisions across teams for scalable training, data, evaluation, deployment, observability, and reliability systems
• Lead multi-team initiatives with far-reaching technical impact across a function, platform, or division
• Define technical direction for data pipelines that support large-scale structured and semi-structured technical datasets
• Set standards for data lineage, provenance, governance, and responsible data usage in ML systems
• Lead architecture for distributed data processing and orchestration systems such as Ray, Airflow, Spark, or similar platforms
• Define scalable approaches for model deployment, inference services, monitoring, and observability for production ML systems
• Influence platform direction for ML-ready representations of geometry, graph, hierarchical, or multimodal data
• Influence standards for engineering quality, architecture, resiliency, risk management, and operational excellence
• Identify long-term technical and operational risks and guide investment decisions that future-proof platform capabilities
• Serve as a technical authority and trusted advisor to engineering leaders, senior engineers, and cross-functional stakeholders
• Resolve complex cross-team technical problems by framing options, aligning stakeholders, and driving execution
• Champion engineering practices that improve service quality, release readiness, monitoring, incident response, and maintainability
• Mentor senior engineers and help build the next level of technical leadership within the organization
• Clearly articulate the business rationale for technical investments and ensure alignment with broader organizational goals

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience
• At least 8 years of industry experience in software engineering, ML platform architecture, distributed systems, or related domains, including experience driving architecture, cross-team technical direction, and large-scale platform outcomes
• Significant experience in software architecture, distributed systems, platform engineering, or ML infrastructure at scale
• Deep expertise in one or more critical areas such as distributed training, data platforms, ML platform architecture, model serving, or reliability engineering
• Proven record of leading technical strategy and delivering cross-team outcomes with broad organizational impact
• Strong command of cloud-native architectures, production engineering practices, and large-scale system design
• Demonstrated ability to influence architecture and engineering standards beyond a single team
• Strong executive-level communication and the ability to connect technical direction to business priorities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience setting architecture direction for ML platforms used across multiple teams or organizations
• Experience building or scaling data pipelines for large-scale structured and semi-structured technical datasets
• Experience with data lineage, provenance, governance, and responsible data usage in ML systems
• Experience with distributed data processing and orchestration systems such as Ray, Airflow, Spark, or similar platforms
• Experience with model deployment, inference services, monitoring, and observability for production ML systems
• Experience building ML-ready representations for geometry, graph, hierarchical, or multimodal data
• Experience building or scaling foundation model infrastructure and high-throughput data systems
• Experience leading engineering improvements around resiliency, service reviews, fire drills, and risk reduction
• Familiarity with AEC, design technology, BIM/CAD ecosystems, or Autodesk products
• External technical leadership through architecture leadership, speaking, or domain expertise is a plus

The Ideal Candidate

• Is a deeply technical leader who still operates effectively in hands-on engineering contexts
• Thinks in systems, platforms, and multi-year strategy
• Leads through influence, judgment, and clarity
• Builds alignment across teams while holding a high bar for technical excellence

Learn More

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Benefits

From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $178,875 and $320,650. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Employment Opportunity