Machine Learning Engineer - LLMs

About this role

HADRIAN - MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE

Hadrian is building autonomous factories that help aerospace and defense companies manufacture rockets, satellites, jets, and ships up to 10x faster and up to 2x cheaper. By combining advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we are reinventing how America produces its most critical parts.

We’re accelerating our mission with the launch of Factory 3 in Mesa, Arizona, a 290,000-square-foot facility creating 350 new jobs. We are expanding rapidly to support thousands of future hires, launching Hadrian Maritime to expand into naval production, and introducing a Factory-as-a-Service model that delivers complete systems instead of individual parts.

Hadrian is backed by leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, our fast-growing team is united around reindustrializing American manufacturing for the 21st century and beyond.

THE ROLE

Copilot is our system for automating Design for Manufacturing (DFM) analysis and generating manufacturing processes. We work directly with some of the best operators in the world to identify high-impact opportunities to automate and augment with software.

Our team owns problems end-to-end: we design the software, define the manufacturing processes, and ensure they can be executed reliably in our factories. The work spans computational geometry, CAD/CAM integrations, high-performance systems, and full-stack web tooling. We execute whatever is required to deliver a working solution and best serve our users.

The DFM team within copilot is building the manufacturing data intelligence layer that serves as the tip of the spear for our automation stack. This platform ingests, interprets, and reasons over the full spectrum of manufacturing data (mechanical drawings, quality documentation, CAD data) and transforms it into structured, actionable information for the factory.

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will own the ML lifecycle for the language models that understand and reason about the content in manufacturing data packages.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Research, develop, and deploy fine-tuned language models for document classification, key information extraction, table parsing, and multi-page/document reasoning

- Work alongside the core engineering team to build and maintain annotation tooling, implement active learning loops, and engineer synthetic data augmentation strategies

- Develop evaluation frameworks that extend beyond accuracy and CER, precisely quantifying system behavior and user impact

- Collaborate with the other members of the machine learning team to set the technical and product roadmaps for the AI platform

- Burn down the long tail, as every percentage point of accuracy maps to man-years of time savings at our scale

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

- 5-8 years of professional AI/ML experience, with at least 2 years working directly with large language models (fine-tuning, RLHF/DPO, or pre-training), with special consideration for work with layout-aware models

- Strong Python and PyTorch fluency: You've written custom training loops, loss functions, and data loaders from scratch when needed

- Production deployment ownership: You've shipped models to production and have been responsible for endpoint and model health

- MS or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field preferred; equivalent industry experience valued equally

BONUS POINTS

- You have a passion for manufacturing and believe that the industry needs better software

- Previously worked in aerospace, defense, or manufacturing, and have experience working with manufacturing data

- Published research, achieved SOA results on relevant benchmarks, or contribute to open-source frameworks

- Prior experience working in a high-ownership startup environment

Compensation

For this role, the target salary range is $160,000 - $250,000 (actual range may vary based on experience).

This is the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may be modified in the future. An employee's pay position within the salary range will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

BENEFITS FOR FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES

- Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees

- 401k

- Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need.

- Flexible vacation policy

- Equity

ITAR REQUIREMENTS

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987.

HADRIAN IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

It is the Company’s policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. The Company does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race inclusive of traits historically associated with race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks and twists), color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, national origin (including, in California, possession of a drivers license), ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, height or weight, medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, domestic

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