
Machine Learning Engineer Job at Darwill, Inc. in chicago
Darwill, Inc., chicago, il, United States
MACHINE LEARNING ENGINEER (MLOPS / DATA ENGINEERING)
Overview
Darwill is a nationally recognized print and marketing communications firm based in the west suburbs of Chicago. As a premier provider of complex, data-driven marketing solutions, we help CMOs and marketing leaders drive measurable performance through advanced analytics, automation, and AI-powered insights.
Location
Chicago, IL area (Oak Brook / West Suburbs)
Hybrid work model with 1–2 days onsite per week required
Reports To
VP of Data Engineering & Data Science
Responsibilities / Essential Functions
Data Engineering & Platform Foundations
- Design, build, and maintain ETL pipelines in Databricks using Spark and Delta Lake
- Independently implement data transformations, joins, and aggregations across large, multi-source datasets
- Build and maintain data validation and quality checks to ensure reliability of downstream analytics and ML workflows
- Optimize Databricks jobs for performance, scalability, and cost efficiency
- Write and maintain clear technical documentation for data pipelines and tables
ML Engineering & MLOps
- Partner closely with Data Scientists to support traditional ML model development, including feature engineering, training, validation, and deployment
- Productionize propensity, ranking, and segmentation models used in large-scale marketing campaigns
- Build and maintain repeatable ML pipelines for training, batch scoring, and inference
- Implement model versioning, experiment tracking, and reproducibility standards
- Support model performance monitoring, drift detection, and retraining cycles
Deployment, Monitoring & Operations
- Deploy data pipelines and ML workflows into production environments serving millions of records
- Implement monitoring and alerting for data and ML pipelines
- Support A/B testing and model performance evaluation in partnership with Data Science
- Troubleshoot production issues independently and collaborate effectively when escalation is needed
GenAI (Secondary / Directional)
- Contribute to GenAI initiatives as capacity allows
- Stay informed on emerging AI technologies and tooling
(GenAI is not the primary focus of this role today.)
Required Qualifications
Experience
- 3–6 years of professional experience in machine learning engineering, data engineering, or a closely related role
- Experience working in production environments with minimal day-to-day supervision
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with Data Scientists and translate models into production systems
Technical Skills (Must-Have)
Data Engineering & Platform
- Apache Spark (PySpark, SparkSQL)
- Databricks (ETL pipelines, workflows, Delta Lake)
- Strong SQL skills (complex queries, joins, window functions, optimization)
- Experience building and maintaining scalable data pipelines
Programming & Machine Learning
- Python (pandas, numpy, scikit-learn; experience with XGBoost or LightGBM preferred)
- Feature engineering and data preparation for ML models
- Working knowledge of supervised learning models (classification, regression, ranking)
MLOps & Production
- Experience deploying ML models into production
- Model versioning and experiment tracking (e.g., MLflow or similar)
- Monitoring data quality and model performance in production
- Supporting retraining and validation workflows
Cloud & Tooling
- Experience with a major cloud platform (Databrick, AWS)
- Familiarity with workflow orchestration tools (Databricks Workflows or similar)
Preferred Qualifications (Nice-to-Have)
- Experience with propensity modeling, customer segmentation, or marketing analytics
- Exposure to CI/CD concepts for data and ML pipelines
- Experience with Docker or containerized deployments
- Exposure to GenAI, LLMs, or RAG-based systems
- Master’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field