Machine Learning Engineer II, AI/ML Infrastructure & GenAI Platforms

Zendesk’s people have one goal in mind: to make Customer Experience better. Our products help more than 125,000 global brands make their billions of customers happy, every day.

The AI/ML Platform team is at the forefront of this mission. We build the foundation that powers every AI-driven experience at Zendesk, enabling product teams to build, evaluate, and deploy state‑of‑the‑art Large Language Model (LLM) applications reliably and at scale.

We’re looking for an ML Engineer II to help design, implement, and improve core components of Zendesk’s GenAI infrastructure — from LLM Proxy and evaluation frameworks to orchestration tools for AI agents. You’ll work alongside senior engineers and technical leads, contributing to systems that are safe, scalable, and developer‑friendly.

This is a hands‑on engineering role with significant growth potential, ideal for someone with solid ML engineering skills who wants to deepen expertise in LLM systems and GenAI infrastructure.

What you get to do every day

• Contribute to the development of Zendesk’s LLM Proxy, enabling secure, cost‑optimized access to multiple foundation models.
• Help develop and maintain benchmarking and A/B testing frameworks for measuring LLM performance, latency, and cost.
• Assist in building orchestration systems that enable multi‑step, tool‑using AI agents.
• Work closely with applied ML, product, and platform teams to ensure infrastructure meets product needs.
• Deliver well‑tested, maintainable, and performant code ready for production deployment.

What you bring to the role

• 2–4 years of hands‑on experience developing and deploying ML systems or infrastructure.
• Familiarity with LLM applications, vector databases, or ML/AI infrastructure components.
• Exposure to AWS, GCP, or Azure; understanding of Kubernetes, Docker, or similar containerised environments.
• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with at least one other backend language (Java, Scala, Golang, or Ruby).
• Understanding of CI/CD workflows, testing frameworks, and software design principles.Ability to work effectively in cross‑functional teams and take feedback constructively.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building small‑scale ML services or APIs.
• Exposure to ML observability tools and evaluation frameworks.
• Understanding of prompt engineering or fine‑tuning workflows for LLMs.

What our tech stack looks like

• Python as primary language.
• Hosted on AWS.
• LLM vendors: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Llama.
• Infra: Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, AWS.

What we offer

• Full ownership of the projects you work on.
• Sizable impact and high visibility.
• Team of passionate people who love what they do.
• Exciting projects with opportunity to implement your own ideas.
• Opportunity to learn and grow.
• Work‑life balance support.
• Flexible working hours.
• Professional development funds.
• Comfortable office and remote setup.
• Choice of laptop and equipment.
• Premium medical insurance and private life assurance.

Hybrid work arrangement

Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration — while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in‑office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The Intelligent Heart Of Customer Experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate, and learn, while also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

EEO Statement

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. We consider individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre‑employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e‑mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.

Seniority Level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment Type

Full‑time

Job Function

Engineering and Information Technology

Industry

Software Development