Senior Machine Learning Engineer

About the role

Vitol is an energy and commodities company with revenues of $400 billion in 2023. We are looking for an experienced Machine Learning Engineer to join our data science and machine learning team in Houston, TX. The individual will work closely with the data and machine learning specialists, software engineers, and commercial teams to deliver machine learning models and applications.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy end-to-end machine learning and data science solutions across our wider business activities
• Drive adoption and development of the firm's internal GenAI chat platform as one of the technical leads
• Apply a broad range of modelling techniques to commodity pricing, supply/demand signals, trade flow analysis, and operational optimization problems
• Own the full data science lifecycle on assigned projects: data sourcing and cleaning, exploratory analysis, feature engineering, model selection and validation, deployment, and ongoing performance monitoring
• Build and maintain robust, well-tested, production-quality code; contribute to shared infrastructure including ML pipelines, data orchestration, and model serving layers
• Integrate ML and GenAI outputs into existing trading systems, dashboards, and workflows
• Communicate analytical findings and model outputs clearly to non-technical stakeholders
• Actively participate in code reviews, experiment design, and tooling decisions; mentor colleagues and help raise the overall standard of analytical and engineering practice across the team

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, or a related quantitative field
• Fluency in Python for both data science and engineering purposes
• 5+ years of industry experience developing and deploying machine learning or statistical models
• Demonstrable experience applying a broad range of ML methodologies to real-world business problems
• Strong proficiency with ML frameworks and experience building or consuming LLM-based pipelines and GenAI applications
• Experience with cloud platforms and modern MLOps practices
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Genuine intellectual curiosity about commodities markets, global energy flows, and the commercial dynamics of trading

Desirable Experience

• Experience in the energy or commodities trading industry, with knowledge of financial markets and trading concepts
• Experience surfacing ML outputs through interactive tools and presenting use cases to non-technical audiences
• Time-series modelling in a trading or financial context, including both ML-based and econometric approaches
• Data orchestrators and cloud-based ETL/ELT pipelines

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Large diversity of projects with real-world impacts on a truly global scale
• Entrepreneurial environment within a flat hierarchy, where great ideas come to life quickly
• Close collaboration with various business units across our key regions
• A highly motivated DS and ML team comprised of experienced individuals with a supportive attitude and great team spirit
• Being part of the energy transition through increased emphasis on renewable & alternative energy sources at a pivotal moment in the industry
• Strong management commitment to incorporating machine learning into the future of Vitol’s operations