Join Our Talented Team at Protagonist
We fuse rigorous, methodologically sound analysis with our cutting-edge technology platform, Narrative Analytics®. This powerful combination enables us to quantitatively analyze open-source media, deliver strategic recommendations, and craft executive-level communication strategies for clients with missions that matter.
Why Us?
Our team is a vibrant mix of communication specialists, data scientists, and subject matter experts with extensive experience across U.S. Government agencies, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. By joining Protagonist, you’ll immerse yourself in a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, and your contributions truly matter.
What We Do
Innovative Solutions: We co-develop cutting-edge solutions with our clients to address tough communication problems and capitalize on opportunities to make a tangible impact.
Data-Driven Insights: Our tools and methodologies provide actionable insights that help clients meet their communication objectives and stay ahead of global challenges.
Applied Expertise: We integrate our solutions within client organizations, leveraging our profound expertise to address critical issues and ensure sustainable success.
Be Part of Something Bigger
At Protagonist, you’ll work on compelling projects that make a real difference. We seek talented individuals eager to contribute to our mission and grow alongside us. If you’re passionate about communication, data analysis, and making an impact, we invite you to explore a career with Protagonist.
Explore Your Future with Us!
Ready to take the next step in your career? Join us at Protagonist and be part of a team that's making a difference. Job Description
Protagonist is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer who builds production-ready systems for mission-critical work. You bring strong engineering discipline, systems thinking, and a bias toward scalable, well-architected solutions—owning the full ML lifecycle from design to deployment.
You’re a builder and strategic partner across engineering, product, and client-facing teams, expanding what AI can do at Protagonist. You stay curious and current with advances in ML, infrastructure, and software development.
Responsibilities
Partner with product, engineering, and data science teams to identify high-impact NLP use cases and turn business needs into ML solutions that deliver measurable value
Own production NLP pipelines spanning narrative detection, NER, span classification, stance and characterization analysis, event extraction, deduplication, and knowledge-base entity linking over multi-language, noisy real-world text
Design, build, and operate production NLP pipelines, narrative detection, event classification, entity resolution and linking, deduplication — over multi-language, noisy real-world text at scale
Build and maintain ML workflows in Metaflow orchestrated on Argo Workflows and Kubernetes (EKS), including GPU-accelerated training and batch inference
Develop LLM-powered features on AWS Bedrock: RAG pipelines with vector search on OpenSearch, tool-using agents, and document-analysis workflows — within GovCloud/ITAR constraints
Fine-tune and deploy transformer models (classification, embeddings, entity linking) for domain-specific and foreign-language content
Establish ML evaluation frameworks regression testing, hallucination detection, quality metrics and define success criteria with product managers
Integrate ML services into our Django/PostgreSQL platform and event-driven infrastructure (Kafka, Redis, OpenSearch)
Lead technical discussions to align cross-functional teams on ML strategy, architecture, and implementation
Mentor others, share knowledge, and help evolve ML practices—balancing innovation with practical delivery
Requirements
U.S. person eligible to work on government contracts; active or prior SECRET clearance preferred
Bachelor’s and 5 years of experience, or master’s degree and 3 years of experience, in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field
Proven track record building and deploying production ML systems, with deep NLP expertise (transformers, LLMs, embedding models)
Strong Python skills and fluency with PyTorch and the Hugging Face ecosystem
Hands-on experience with AWS (GovCloud experience a strong plus), Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines
Experience with ML orchestration and experiment tracking (e.g., Metaflow, Argo Workflows, MLflow, or similar)
Experience with vector search and document indexing (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch or similar)
Experience building LLM applications, RAG, agents, prompt engineering, and evaluation
Skilled at scaling ML for multi-modal (text, image, video) and domain-specific applications, and working effectively across engineering, product, and business teams
Ideal Candidates
Experience integrating ML into full-stack products (Django/REST APIs, React frontends) or decision-support tools
Experience operating in compliance-constrained environments
Strong communicator and cross-functional collaborator
Self-starter who thrives in ambiguity and startup-like environments
Join Us
If you’re passionate about technology and making an impact, apply today! Protagonist is dedicated to fostering a welcoming and innovative environment where everyone’s voice can make a difference.
Protagonist is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Salary Range: $95,000-$141,000 based on education and level of relevant experience.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.