Senior Machine Learning Engineer

📋 Job Overview

Running a frontline business is an operational puzzle most software has never touched. Shift-by-shift labour costs, compliance that changes by region and by role, and margins thin enough that a badly built rota can sink a quarter. It's a harder problem than most white-collar SaaS, and yet frontline sectors employ 80% of the global workforce and have received about 1% of the last decade's software investment. We think that's because the problem needed AI, not just better software, before it was solvable. Frontline organisations sit on enormous amounts of operational data. Used properly, that data lets agents take on real parts of running the business rather than just reporting on it. That's what we're building at Sona, and it's early enough that the systems you build now will still be foundational in three years. We've raised over $100M from N47, Felicis, Gradient and Northzone, signed more than 100 enterprise customers across the UK and US, and opened offices in London, New York, Austin and Lisbon. More on working at Sona here.

🏢 About Sona

We've raised over $100M from N47, Felicis, Gradient and Northzone, signed more than 100 enterprise customers across the UK and US, and opened offices in London, New York, Austin and Lisbon.

🎯 The Role

You'll join a two-person ML team and a forecasting system making half hourly demand predictions across diverse targets for multiple restaurant chains. Our forecasting models enter into a complex environment with key machine and human decisions being made on their predictions, facing feedback loops and a highly variable environment. The system works - the challenge now is scaling it from a handful of clients to 100s. You'll own client launches end-to-end: validating data, selecting models, running UAT, going live, and monitoring performance afterwards. You'll join client calls, build relationships, and understand what actually matters on the ground - not just whether the model is accurate, but whether the kitchen prepped the right amount of food.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Own client launches end-to-end: validating data, selecting models, running UAT, going live, and monitoring performance afterwards.
• Join client calls, build relationships, and understand what actually matters on the ground.
• Take ownership of the product and outcome end-to-end.
• Focus on solving the problem and choose simplicity over complexity.
• Work with industry experts to understand client businesses and realities.
• Take a machine learning project from business idea to deployed production system.
• Use AI tools for development as your standard working mode.

📌 Required Qualifications

• Production ML experience, with a track record of deploying ML systems that handle messy data, fail gracefully, and need monitoring.
• Strong ML fundamentals - you can reason about trade-offs in practice, explain the "why" behind feature and model choices, and make good judgement calls when something unexpected happens.
• Client-facing deployment experience - you've personally owned an ML deployment end-to-end and are comfortable on calls with non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong programming skills in Python, including the ML/scientific Python stack (e.g. numpy, scikit-learn).
• Daily use of AI development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot or equivalent) as your default working mode.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Forecasting, time-series, or demand-planning - someone who understands lag features, calendar effects, and evaluation integrity intuitively will ramp significantly faster.
• Our stack: Python, scikit-learn, MLflow, Docker, GCP.
• A small team where ownership is wide and context-switching is normal.

🎁 Benefits

Salary: £95,000-£110,000
Fully remote (European timezones)
Share options
35 days annual leave (25 days standard plus 10 flexible public holiday days)
Extra day of leave for every year of service
Pension contributions matched up to 5%
Comprehensive health insurance
Enhanced parental leave & pay
Salary sacrifice childcare scheme (Workplace Nursery)
Coworking space stipend for those based outside London
Annual all expenses paid team retreats
The latest Macbook and equipment budget for your home office
Professional development budget
Unlimited free books

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

Note: this represents a typical benefits package for a UK-based, full-time employee. Exact details may vary based on location and employment type but we try to be as fair as possible to all our team members. Please ask your contact in the Talent team to clarify the available benefits for you.