Machine Learning Engineer

Job Title: AI Engineer \| Principal Machine Learning Engineer

Location: Greater London, England, United Kingdom

Type: Full Time

Our client is looking for a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to define and lead the technical direction of production-grade ML systems that transform raw sports data and live video into real-time insights and highly personalised fan experiences at scale.

This role follows a hybrid working model, with two days per week onsite at the Osterley office.

Role Overview

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across a critical ML domain—such as live sports insights and personalisation, real-time ranking systems, computer vision for multi-angle broadcast video, or streaming inference platforms. You will shape roadmaps, influence architecture decisions, evolve ML platforms, and raise engineering standards across teams—not just build individual models.

What You’ll Do

• Act as the technical leader for a key ML capability area, guiding architecture, platform evolution, and delivery strategy
• Lead end-to-end development of AI solutions using Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Generative AI, and data science to power features such as automated sports metadata generation and live event detection
• Design and deploy models that generate actionable insights related to player performance, contextual statistics, and injury risk, embedding responsible and ethical AI principles from design through production
• Integrate ML-driven insights into personalisation engines, tailoring recommendations based on teams, players, live match context, and behavioural signals—while ensuring fairness, transparency, and responsible data use
• Define advanced experimentation frameworks, oversee A/B testing, create performance metrics and dashboards, and establish robust MLOps practices
• Own production ML systems end to end, from data ingestion and model training through deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement
• Architect and operate scalable, low-latency, cloud-based AI systems used in live sports environments, balancing cost, reliability, responsiveness, and peak-traffic performance

What You’ll Bring

• Extensive senior or principal-level engineering experience delivering sports-focused or sports data–driven ML systems, with clear ownership of technical direction and delivery
• Deep knowledge of sports data, including hands-on experience with event data, tracking data, or other high-volume, real-time sports datasets
• Strong understanding of modern ML techniques—including Generative AI—and experience extracting insights from multimodal data such as numerical metrics, spatial data, video, and metadata
• Advanced Python expertise with proven use of ML/DL frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow, including taking models from experimentation into full production serving
• Comprehensive MLOps experience, including CI/CD for ML, experiment tracking, model registries, drift detection, automated retraining, and infrastructure-as-code
• Demonstrated technical leadership, including mentoring Senior and Mid-Level Data Scientists and supporting teams through change and uncertainty
• Experience designing scalable, low-latency architectures for real-time or near-real-time data processing and streaming use cases
• Strong communication and influence skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex technical strategies to executives, cross-functional partners, and non-technical stakeholders