Systems Software Engineer - Machine Learning Ops

Systems Software Engineer — Machine Learning Ops About The Role What if your deep C++ expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI systems? We're looking for a senior systems engineer to build and optimize the data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation infrastructure that leading AI labs depend on to train and ship better models. This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for engineers who thrive at the intersection of systems programming and cutting-edge AI. Real production systems. High-impact work. Serious technical depth. • Organization: Alignerr • Type: Hourly Contract • Location: Remote • Commitment: 20–40 hours/week What You'll Do • Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems supporting large-scale AI data pipelines and evaluation workflows • Develop full-stack tooling and backend services for data annotation, validation, and quality control at scale • Improve reliability, performance, and safety across production C++ codebases • Identify and resolve bottlenecks, edge cases, and systemic issues in data and system behavior • Collaborate with data, research, and engineering teams to support model training and evaluation workflows • Participate in synchronous design reviews to iterate on architecture and implementation decisions Who You Are • Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills • Full-stack developer with a strong systems programming background • 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade C++ • Experienced working with the C++ frontends of ML frameworks or inference runtimes • Familiar with hardware acceleration APIs for optimizing model inference • Able to commit 20–40 hours per week with reliability and consistency Nice to Have • Prior experience with data annotation, data quality, or evaluation systems • Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training, or benchmarking pipelines • Experience with distributed systems or developer tooling Why Join Us • Work directly on cutting-edge AI infrastructure alongside leading research labs • Fully remote and flexible — work when and where you do your best work • Freelance autonomy with the substance of high-impact, technically demanding projects • Contribute to systems that meaningfully shape how next-generation AI models are built and evaluated • Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as new projects launch