The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Senior Machine Learning Engineer
Richland, Washington, USA · Senior · full-time
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odds of building a lasting career here
Files H-1B any time — no cap, no lottery. The 2026 weighted-selection rule doesn't touch it, which makes this the strongest structural path for entry-level talent. Pay is often lower, but your odds of staying are dramatically higher.
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Level IV starts at $157,914 — $17,714 above the bottom of this range, and above its posted ceiling.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · Kennewick-Richland, WA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
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About the role
- Our Science & Technology directorates include National Security, Earth and Biological Sciences, Physical and Computational Sciences, and Energy and Environment.
- In addition, we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.
- Working in multidisciplinary teams, we connect foundational research to engineering to operations, providing the tools to innovate quickly and field results faster.
Responsibilities
- Leads the refactoring, modularization, and optimization of research code to improve maintainability, scalability, and production readiness.
- Collaborates closely with researchers to understand algorithmic intent and with engineers to ensure seamless integration into broader systems and workflows.
- Architects and develops tools, pipelines, and APIs that enable deployment into mission-relevant environments.
- Writes clear, well-documented code and leads code reviews to uphold team standards.
Requirements
- In addition, applicants must be able to demonstrate non-use of illegal drugs, including marijuana, for the 12 consecutive months preceding completion of the requisite Questionnaire for National Security Positions (QNSP).
Nice to have
- Degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a related field.
- Experience in research engineering, ML engineering, AI systems integration, or applied data science.
- Strong proficiency in Python and hands-on experience with ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face).
- Demonstrated ability to navigate research codebases (e.g., Jupyter notebooks, unstructured scripts) and translate them into production-ready components.
- Experience designing and deploying scalable ML pipelines or AI-enabled tools in operational or mission-critical settings.
- Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to bridge research and engineering teams.
- Hazardous Working Conditions/Environment Not applicable.
- The investigation also examines your foreign connections, drug and alcohol use, foreign influence, and overall conduct.
Compensation
- $140k-$140k
Company info
- We are an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.
- We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures and in employment.
Visa & Work Authorization
- Additional Information This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance
This listing is sourced directly from The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.