Applied AI Inference Engineer

About Baseten

Baseten powers mission-critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies to bring cutting-edge models into production. Baseten is growing quickly with a recent $150M Series D round backed by top investors.

The Role

As an Applied AI Inference Engineer at Baseten, you will partner directly with customers to architect, build, and deploy high-scale production AI applications on Baseten’s platform. You will own the customer journey from initial exploration to production deployment, translating ambiguous business goals into reliable, observable services with clear quality, latency, and cost outcomes.

This role is ideal for entrepreneurial engineers who enjoy coding, product management, customer success, and pre-sales solution engineering.

Example Initiatives

• Forward Deployed Engineering on the frontier of AI
• The fastest, most accurate Whisper transcription
• Deploy production-ready model servers from Docker images
• Deploy custom ComfyUI workflows as APIs

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain production-level software systems, primarily using Python.
• Design and deploy Baseten solutions end-to-end with customer teams.
• Turn vague objectives into clear specs and well-defined PoCs.
• Enhance AI/ML projects and improve our technical stack.
• Own projects end-to-end, acting as engineer, project manager, and product manager.
• Navigate ambiguity and make informed tradeoffs.
• Demonstrate pride, ownership, and accountability in work.

Requirements

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field.
• 1+ years of professional work experience in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Proficiency in one or more general-purpose programming languages with emphasis on Python.
• Familiarity with AI/ML pipelines and model lifecycle.
• Strong communication skills on complex technical topics.
• Experience in building or optimizing AI/ML projects is highly valued.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with meaningful equity.
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and dependents.
• Generous PTO including a company-wide Winter Break.
• Paid parental leave and company-facilitated 401(k).
• Exposure to a variety of ML startups for strong networking opportunities.

Key skills/competency

• Python
• AI Inference
• ML Deployment
• Customer Engineering
• Software Development
• Product Management
• Technical Problem Solving
• Performance Engineering
• Project Management
• Production Systems