ML Infrastructure Engineer Jobs

Engineers who design, build, and maintain the systems that power machine learning workflows. A critical role in scaling and optimising ML operations.

Open roles
10
Salary range
£273k – £636k
Hiring companies
6

ML Infrastructure Engineers are the backbone of any machine learning organisation. They design, build, and maintain the infrastructure that supports the entire ML lifecycle, from data ingestion and preprocessing to model training, deployment, and monitoring. These engineers work closely with data scientists and ML researchers to ensure that the infrastructure is robust, scalable, and efficient. They are often found in tech scaleups, research-heavy startups, and the larger consultancies, where the demand for reliable and performant ML systems is high.

What the role does

Inside the role of an ML Infrastructure Engineer

A typical week is split between designing and implementing new infrastructure components, troubleshooting existing systems, and collaborating with cross-functional teams.

  1. 01
    Design and implement scalable data pipelines.
  2. 02
    Optimise and maintain ML model training environments.
  3. 03
    Collaborate with data scientists to understand infrastructure needs.
  4. 04
    Troubleshoot and resolve performance issues in production systems.
  5. 05
    Document and standardise infrastructure best practices.
  6. 06
    Stay updated with the latest ML infrastructure trends and tools.
Salary on the board

£273k – £636k

Based on advertised midpoints across the 4 UK listings priced in pounds in the last 12 months. Base salary only.

Salary visibility
22% of listings advertise a salary.
Skills & tools

What hiring managers ask for

% of 16 listings posted in the last 12 months that mention each skill, extracted from job descriptions.

Python
50%
Kubernetes
50%
Terraform
44%
Distributed Systems
44%
Infrastructure as Code
44%
Networking
31%
GCP
25%
CI/CD
25%
AWS
19%
Docker
19%
Machine Learning
19%
Linux
19%
Career ladder

From Junior to Principal

A typical UK progression for ml infrastructure engineers. Years are guidance — strong people move faster, and many senior folks sidestep into research, product or management.

  1. Level 1

    Junior ML Infrastructure Engineer

    0–2 yrs

    Assist in the design and implementation of basic ML infrastructure components, with a focus on learning and gaining hands-on experience.

  2. Level 2

    ML Infrastructure Engineer

    2–5 yrs

    Own the design and implementation of key infrastructure components, ensuring they are scalable and efficient.

  3. Level 3

    Senior ML Infrastructure Engineer

    5–8 yrs

    Lead the development of complex infrastructure solutions, mentor junior engineers, and drive infrastructure innovation.

  4. Level 4

    Principal ML Infrastructure Engineer

    8+ yrs

    Strategise and oversee the entire ML infrastructure architecture, influence company-wide technical decisions, and lead major initiatives.

Pathway

How to become a ML Infrastructure Engineer

There's no single route, but most people follow some version of these steps.

  1. 1

    Learn the Basics

    Start by gaining a solid understanding of data engineering, cloud services, and ML workflows. Hands-on projects and courses can help build a strong foundation.

  2. 2

    Gain Practical Experience

    Work on real-world projects, either through internships or entry-level roles. Focus on building and maintaining data pipelines and ML environments.

  3. 3

    Specialise in ML Infrastructure

    Deepen your expertise in specific areas such as distributed systems, containerisation, and orchestration tools. Contribute to more complex infrastructure designs.

  4. 4

    Lead Projects and Teams

    Take on leadership roles, managing infrastructure projects and mentoring junior engineers. Drive innovation and best practices within your team.

  5. 5

    Influence Company Strategy

    At the senior level, you will influence the overall ML infrastructure strategy, working closely with leadership to shape the technical direction of the organisation.

  6. 6

    Industry Thought Leadership

    Becoming a principal engineer involves not only leading within your organisation but also contributing to the broader ML community through speaking engagements and publications.

Live jobs

10 live roles

See all 10 roles →
Anthropic logo

Anthropic · 51–200 people · Series B

Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure

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  • London
  • Hybrid · 1 day in office
  • £325,000 – £485,000 pa
  • Lead

Sets technical direction for agent-driven compute cluster lifecycle management, covering provisioning, updates and decommissioning across major clouds and own datacenters. Partners with security, research and cloud providers on secure-by-default, high-bandwidth, fault-tolerant clusters, and mentors engineers while owning multi-quarter strategy.

Kubernetes · Terraform · AWS +7

Visa sponsorship 3 months ago
Isomorphic Labs logo

Isomorphic Labs · 201–500 people · Series A

Principal Software Engineer (Infrastructure)

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  • London
  • Hybrid · 3 days in office
  • Lead

Technically lead the Platform group, designing, operating and refining research, development and production cloud infrastructure across GCP, Kubernetes, Docker and Terraform. The role spans core technical decisions, tooling and CI/CD processes, working closely with scientists, ML researchers and product teams, and reports directly to the Director of Engineering.

GCP · Kubernetes · Docker +7

5 days ago

ElevenLabs

Research Engineer - Data Infrastructure

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  • United Kingdom
  • Remote
  • Mid-level
  • Permanent

Owns the data infrastructure behind frontier AI models, building large-scale pipelines for collecting, filtering and transforming training datasets. Also trains classifiers, quality filters and labeling models, and designs curation strategies like deduplication and quality scoring. Fully remote, with tooling work letting researchers explore and train on massive datasets.

Kubernetes

3 weeks ago
Isomorphic Labs logo

Isomorphic Labs · 201–500 people · Series A

Principal Software Engineer (ML Infrastructure)

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  • London
  • Hybrid · 3 days in office
  • Lead

Builds and evolves a large-scale ML infrastructure platform that supports training and deploying novel models across vast compute and data pools. Works closely with engineering, research and product teams, and explores deploying agents to improve platform robustness. Requires strong Python and experience scaling complex systems, with ML or Kubernetes exposure a plus.

Kubernetes · Google Cloud Platform · GCP

5 days ago

OpenAI

Software Engineer, Compute Infrastructure

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  • London
  • Hybrid
  • Permanent

Builds and optimizes the compute platform behind frontier AI, spanning bare-metal automation, Kubernetes scheduling, high-performance networking, storage, and fleet health. Engineers move across software, hardware, and networking layers, profiling training workloads and improving NCCL, RDMA, and GPU efficiency. Hiring is general across Compute Infrastructure, with teams matched to candidate strengths.

Kubernetes · NCCL · RDMA +4

3 months ago

Wayve · 11–50 people · Series A

Platform Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure

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  • London
  • Hybrid
  • Mid-level
  • Permanent

Builds and operates cloud infrastructure, automation and deployment systems, primarily on Azure, using Terraform and Ansible for infrastructure as code. Supports CI/CD pipelines, containerised workloads, monitoring, observability and cost optimisation, and handles incident response and root-cause analysis. Works closely with engineering teams to improve the developer experience.

Azure · AWS · GCP +4

Visa sponsorship Last month

OpenAI

Software Engineer, ChatGPT Infrastructure

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  • London
  • Mid-level
  • Permanent

Backend engineering role focused on the systems that keep ChatGPT reliable at scale, spanning shared services, APIs, asynchronous processing and infrastructure migrations. Engineers write production code, own rollout and rollback, and improve monitoring and diagnostics, with on-call and incident response duties. Distinct for its close coupling of infrastructure work to a high-traffic consumer product.

ChatGPT · APIs · Cloud Infrastructure +2

Clearance required 4 months ago
Anthropic logo

Anthropic · 51–200 people · Series B

Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure

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  • London
  • Hybrid · 1 day in office
  • £325,000 – £395,000 pa
  • Senior

Builds foundational infrastructure for AI safety, oversight and intervention, including data storage, metrics and evaluation systems, and tooling for human and agentic review. The role also involves running these systems day to day and building multi-layered, real-time defenses against misuse at scale.

Claude Code

Visa sponsorship 3 months ago
Top hirers

Companies hiring ml infrastructure engineers

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Hiring locations

Where this role is hiring

The locations with the most live listings for this role today.

FAQs

Common questions

  • Essential skills include strong programming abilities, knowledge of cloud platforms, experience with data pipelines, and a deep understanding of machine learning workflows.

  • Gain experience in data engineering and cloud services, and start working on ML-related projects. Online courses and certifications can also help bridge the gap.

  • Senior engineers lead the design and implementation of complex infrastructure solutions, mentor junior team members, and drive innovation in infrastructure practices.

  • The typical progression is from Junior to Senior, then to Principal Engineer. Each step involves increasing responsibility and influence over the organisation's technical direction.

  • Salaries vary based on experience and location. For specific salary ranges, please refer to the salary section on this page.

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