CAREERS

Partner 20, ML Ops Engineer

Founded in Silicon Valley in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z) is a venture capital firm that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology. We are stage agnostic. We invest in seed to venture to growth-stage technology companies, across AI, bio + healthcare, consumer, crypto, enterprise, fintech, games, and companies building toward American dynamism. a16z has $42B in assets under management across multiple funds.

We’ve established a team that is defined by respect for the entrepreneur and the company-building process; we know what it’s like to be in the founder’s shoes. We’ve invested in companies like Affirm, Airbnb, Coinbase, Databricks, Devoted Health, Insitro, Figma, GitHub, Instacart, OpenSea, Roblox, Stripe, and Substack. Our team is at the forefront of new technology, helping founders and their companies impact and change the world.

The Role

At a16z, we believe data is at the core of making informed decisions and effectively supporting our portfolio companies. Our Data & Analytics team builds and manages the infrastructure that supports our data lake (Databricks), data pipelines (dbt), data ingestion (Fivetran & custom Python scripts), and data visualizations (Looker/Hex). We leverage cutting-edge GenAI alongside more traditional data & analytics to empower our firm.

As an ML Ops Engineer, you will play a critical role in developing and optimizing our machine learning & large language model infrastructure in Databricks. You will work on accelerating and hardening our GenAI projects by building scalable, efficient, and secure MLOps pipelines. This role requires technical expertise in machine learning operations, a strong understanding of data infrastructure, and the ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.

To join our team, you should be excited to:

• Design, implement, and maintain scalable and robust MLOps pipelines in Databricks to support GenAI projects
• Develop and optimize infrastructure to accelerate the deployment and monitoring of machine learning models
• Collaborate with analytics engineers to streamline the end-to-end machine learning workflow, from data ingestion to model deployment
• Implement best practices for model versioning, testing, and validation to ensure the reliability and accuracy of deployed models
• Monitor and maintain the performance, security, and scalability of the machine learning infrastructure
• Develop automation scripts and tools to improve the efficiency and reliability of MLOps processes
• Stay current with the latest trends and technologies in machine learning, MLOps, LLMOps, and recommend improvements to our existing infrastructure
• Provide technical guidance and support to team members and stakeholders on MLOps best practices

Minimum Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in machine learning operations, data engineering, or a related field
• Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL
• Strong understanding of machine learning concepts and experience with deploying ML models in a production environment
• Proven experience in designing and implementing MLOps pipelines and infrastructure
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and services, particularly those related to data and machine learning
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams
• Knowledge of containerization technologies such as Docker
• Low ego, high empathy, and the capacity to collaborate effectively with diverse teams
• Experience using Databricks and AWS preferred
• Experience with GenAI projects and understanding of generative AI concepts and methodologies preferred

The anticipated salary range for this role is between $225,000-$263,000, actual starting pay may vary based on a range of factors which can include experience, skills, and scope.

This role is eligible to participate in the a16z Carry program and various discretionary bonus programs as well as benefit and perquisite plans including health, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, 401K plan, vacation, and sick leave.