Founding Machine Learning Engineer
- Location
- San Francisco
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Compensation
- $150k – $250k + equity
About this role
Colare's assessments are how leading space and defense, manufacturing, and robotics companies decide who their next engineers are. Automating the scoring behind those assessments is an open machine learning problem. You would own it.
The deterministic part is done. If a finished CAD model meets spec, Colare can already tell. What is not solved is scoring the process: how an engineer got there, what they considered, what they discarded. That means turning senior engineers' judgment into machine-readable rubrics, which is a different problem from the human checklist version of the same thing.
You would report to Nain, the cofounder and CTO, and work directly with the mechanical and electrical engineers who define what correct looks like.
What you'll do
Build the scoring models. Multimodal architectures reasoning over PCB layouts, CAD geometry, simulation output, and candidate interaction traces.
Encode the process, not just the result. Translate how good engineers work into rubrics a model can apply.
Own the learning loop. Data generation from real assessment runs, trajectory capture, failure analysis, dataset curation, continuous evaluation.
Work with the domain experts. Sit with the ME and EE to turn their judgment into structured labels.
Ship to production. Models go into scoring pipelines used in live hiring decisions.
What happens next
Skip the application pile. I get you in front of the people who decide.
Confirm the fit
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I pitch you to the company
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
A meeting lands on your calendar
When the company wants to meet, I get the call on your calendar. You just show up.
Culture & values
Culture emphasizes autonomy, speed, creative problem solving, critical thinking, and hungry early-stage builders.
They value people who genuinely enjoy solving hard problems (not just doing tasks).
Work cadence: standard expectation is 5 days/week, with occasional extra time for urgent needs (not a formal every-week 6-day requirement).
Hybrid/in-office: preference for in-office 5 days/week, but flexible.
Know someone who'd be great for this?
