Machine Learning Engineer

Programa | AI-powered SaaS for the Design Industry

📍 Melbourne (Hybrid) | Open to Australia & New Zealand

💰 To be discussed upon application

Programa is a fast-growing, Series B SaaS startup building an operating system for interior designers and architects. With 5,500+ paying customers across 85 countries, we’re already the backbone of the design industry and now we’re doubling down on AI to take it further.

We’re hiring a Machine Learning Engineer to help ship real, customer-facing AI features across search, recommendations, agents, and automation. This is a hands-on role where you’ll work at the intersection of ML, backend engineering, and product, turning LLM capabilities into production systems that scale.

This is not an R&D role.

This is about shipping AI that actually works in production.

What you’ll work on

You’ll join a growing Data & AI team and collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Engineering to:

• Build and ship end-to-end ML-powered features (search, recommendations, AI agents)
• Develop and deploy LLM-based systems using RAG, embeddings, and structured context
• Own model deployment and infrastructure on AWS (SageMaker, Bedrock, Lambda, OpenSearch)
• Create and monitor embedding pipelines and vector search relevance
• Build context-aware AI assistants that understand real user workflows
• Contribute to data pipelines using Snowflake, dbt, and SQL
• Help define evaluation frameworks for quality, grounding, and safety
• Influence our AI platform architecture and roadmap as we scale

What we’re looking for

We’re open on background but strong execution matters most.

You’ll likely have:

• 3ish years of experience as an ML Engineer or backend-focused AI Engineer
• Strong Python skills and experience shipping production code
• Hands-on experience deploying ML/LLM systems in production
• Familiarity with FastAPI, LangChain, OpenAI SDK
• Experience with AWS (SageMaker, Bedrock, Lambda, Docker)
• Solid understanding of RAG, embeddings, and LLM application design
• Comfort working in fast-moving, slightly unstructured environments

Nice to have (not required):

• Agent or co-pilot style systems
• LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or similar orchestration tools
• Vector databases (OpenSearch, Pinecone)
• Search relevance optimisation
• Experience building AI features for SaaS products

Why join Programa?

• Real impact, fast: you’ll ship meaningful AI features within your first few months
• Production-first AI: no demos that die in Notion docs
• Strong technical leadership: work closely with our CTO and Head of Data & AI
• Cross-functional culture: engineers, PMs, and designers build together
• Career growth: clear path toward Senior → Principal as the team scales
• Modern AI workflows: context engineering, spec-driven development, and experimentation encouraged

Team & ways of working

• 5-week delivery cycles
• Strong DevOps & automation mindset
• Regular 1:1s and thoughtful code reviews
• Balance of new feature delivery and technical quality
• Hybrid setup out of our office in Cremorne, Melbourne
• Minimum 2 days/week in-office (Wed & Thu)

Our mission

We’re modernising the global architecture and interior design industry, connecting designers, brands, suppliers, and clients through a single, intelligent platform.

If you want to build AI systems that power real workflows for thousands of users, we’d love to hear from you.

👉 Apply via LinkedIn or reach out for a confidential chat