Senior AI/ML Engineer

About Cooley AI

Cooley AI is the wholly‑owned subsidiary of Cooley LLP, the frontier development arm of the leading technology law firm in the world. Its mission is to bring best‑in‑class technology practices into the legal domain and help lead the firm and the legal industry into the AI era. All employees of Cooley AI are employees of Cooley and are seconded to Cooley AI.

Position Summary

As a leading technology law firm, Cooley is determined to become a leader in the digital practice of law. Cooley Innovation embraces a culture of customer service excellence, and all members of the department are expected to advance this mission. The Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer will play a key role in building, deploying, and operating enterprise‑scale AI and ML solutions across Azure, AWS, and other cloud and hybrid platforms. This role is highly hands‑on and execution‑focused, combining strong software engineering practices with applied AI and ML expertise to deliver secure, scalable, and high‑performing solutions that support the firm’s business and technology objectives.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain production‑grade AI and ML solutions across Azure, AWS, and other cloud platforms.
• Implement end‑to‑end AI application pipelines including data ingestion, prompt engineering, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, data, and business teams to translate requirements into practical AI and ML implementations.
• Write high‑quality, scalable, and maintainable code for AI and ML workloads.
• Optimize performance, reliability, and cost efficiency of cloud‑based AI and ML services.
• Integrate AI and ML solutions with enterprise data platforms such as data lakes, data warehouses, APIs, and streaming systems.
• Support AI solution lifecycle management including versioning, prompt iteration, evaluation, and production support.
• Apply security, compliance, and data‑privacy best practices in all AI and ML implementations.
• Contribute to technical design discussions and provide guidance on AI and ML implementation patterns.
• Stay current with advancements in AI, ML, and cloud technologies and apply them pragmatically.
• All other duties as assigned or required.

Required Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of directly applicable experience building and deploying AI and ML solutions.
• Hands‑on experience developing AI and ML solutions on Azure and/or AWS.
• Strong proficiency in Python for building and operating LLM‑powered applications and agentic workflows.
• Experience integrating LLM applications with enterprise data sources, APIs, and retrieval systems (RAG).
• Hands‑on experience building agentic and LLM‑powered applications using frameworks such as LangChain, LangSmith, Pydantic AI, or similar orchestration and observability tooling.
• Knowledge of cloud security, governance, and data‑privacy principles as they relate to AI and ML systems.
• Preferred: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related discipline.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite, iManage, and other firm applications after orientation.
• Ability to work extended and/or weekend hours and to travel as required.

Competencies

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including technical and user documentation.
• Strong analytical, problem‑solving, critical‑thinking, and implementation abilities.
• Professional demeanor with high attention to detail, follow‑up, and organizational skills.
• Ability to work independently, under pressure, and solve multiple problems simultaneously.
• Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to organize, prioritize, and coordinate multiple activities under tight timelines.
• Strong judgment and ability to drive projects to completion.
• Team‑player with a collaborative spirit.
• Unwavering ability to maintain confidentiality regarding firm information, projects, and client data.
• Effective presentation skills and high level of professionalism at all times.

Pay

The expected annual pay range for this full‑time position is $200,000 – $300,000, with the final offer dependent on geographic location, experience, and skill set.

Benefits

• Full range of elective benefits including medical, health‑savings account (with applicable medical plan), dental, vision, health and/or dependent‑care flexible spending accounts, pre‑tax commuter benefits, life insurance, AD&D, long‑term care coverage, backup care for children and/or adults, and other parental support benefits.
• Firm‑paid life insurance, AD&D, long‑term disability, and short‑term medical benefits.
• 21 days of paid time off (PTO) and 10 paid holidays each year.
• Generous parental leave and fertility benefits.
• Detailed benefit orientation for new employees.