Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Atlassian is a company focused on unleashing the potential of every team through their software products. They are seeking a Principal Machine Learning Systems Engineer who will set the technical direction for search infrastructure and influence cross-functional teams to drive high-impact initiatives.
Responsibilities
- Define and champion the multi-year technical roadmap for search serving, vector infrastructure, and agentic retrieval
- Identify architectural inflection points — such as the evolution from keyword to semantic search, or the shift toward retrieval-for-agents — and build organizational consensus around the right path forward
- Drive high-impact initiatives across teams that do not report to you
- Influence peers, partner teams, and stakeholders by framing problems compellingly, co-authoring shared technical strategies, and creating forums — deep dives, design reviews, working groups — where the best ideas win on merit
- Navigate ambiguity and competing priorities across the Search Platform, ML Platform, AI Gateway, and Rovo product teams to keep critical cross-functional programs on track
- Own the technical strategy for retrieval systems that ground Rovo agents and AI workflows, including personalized indexes, multi-step retrieval pipelines, and RAG infrastructure at scale
- Anticipate how agentic use cases will stress existing search architecture and proactively design for those requirements before they become blockers
- Set the standard for production ML serving, cost discipline, and reliability across the search stack
- Drive FinOps-oriented decisions — such as vector cluster right-sizing and query embedding caching — that deliver material infrastructure savings without sacrificing SLO targets
- Raise the technical bar across the organization through code review, design feedback, and sponsoring the growth of senior engineers toward principal-level impact
Skills
- Set the technical direction for search infrastructure that powers Rovo, Jira, Confluence, and the broader Atlassian AI platform
- Operate with broad organizational influence, driving outcomes across teams and functions without relying on positional authority
- Define and champion the multi-year technical roadmap for search serving, vector infrastructure, and agentic retrieval
- Identify architectural inflection points — such as the evolution from keyword to semantic search, or the shift toward retrieval-for-agents — and build organizational consensus around the right path forward
- Earn alignment through technical credibility, clear reasoning, and the ability to make complex tradeoffs legible to engineers, product managers, and senior leadership alike
- Drive high-impact initiatives across teams that do not report to you
- Influence peers, partner teams, and stakeholders by framing problems compellingly, co-authoring shared technical strategies, and creating forums — deep dives, design reviews, working groups — where the best ideas win on merit
- Navigate ambiguity and competing priorities across the Search Platform, ML Platform, AI Gateway, and Rovo product teams to keep critical cross-functional programs on track
- Own the technical strategy for retrieval systems that ground Rovo agents and AI workflows, including personalized indexes, multi-step retrieval pipelines, and RAG infrastructure at scale
- Anticipate how agentic use cases will stress existing search architecture and proactively design for those requirements before they become blockers
- Set the standard for production ML serving, cost discipline, and reliability across the search stack
- Drive FinOps-oriented decisions — such as vector cluster right-sizing and query embedding caching — that deliver material infrastructure savings without sacrificing SLO targets
- Raise the technical bar across the organization through code review, design feedback, and sponsoring the growth of senior engineers toward principal-level impact
Benefits
- Atlassians can choose where they work – whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two.
- Health and wellbeing resources
- Paid volunteer days
- This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.
Company Overview
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