Founding Senior ML Engineer

About Coco

At Coco, we’re revolutionizing urban logistics by connecting people to local restaurants through an innovative fleet of on-demand delivery robots. Our sidewalk-navigating bots help merchants deliver faster, reduce costs, and create exceptional customer experiences—while empowering cities and supporting local economies.

As we reshape the future of last-mile delivery, we’re building a cutting-edge Autonomy Team to develop the AI and machine learning systems that scale our robot fleet efficiently, safely, and sustainably.

About the Role

We are seeking a Founding Data & ML Infrastructure Engineer to build the foundation of Coco’s autonomy data and machine learning systems. Reporting directly to the CTO, you’ll play a hands-on role in designing, developing, and scaling the infrastructure for training, deploying, and managing autonomous robotics models—leveraging millions of miles of delivery data, proprietary video streams, and LiDAR inputs.

This role is pivotal in transforming how we mine, organize, and utilize massive datasets to improve our robot-to-pilot ratio and bring autonomous delivery to every urban neighborhood.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect high-performance data infrastructure for large-scale ML pipelines and training workloads.

• Build data extraction, cleaning, and curation pipelines across logs, sensors, video, and LiDAR sources.

• Develop systems for data exploration, versioning, governance, and reproducible ML experimentation.

• Create tools for automated dataset discovery and active learning to optimize model improvement.

• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to design training workflows, implement model query layers, and build testing environments.

• Manage and optimize cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) for scalable model training and deployment.

• Implement infrastructure-as-code solutions for repeatability and speed using Terraform or similar tools.

• Continuously improve cost, speed, and reliability of ML model experimentation.

• Serve as a technical leader in infrastructure architecture and collaborate cross-functionally.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years in software, data, or infrastructure engineering with direct ML/AI system exposure.

• Deep experience with cloud-based data infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure).

• Advanced proficiency in programming (e.g., Python, Go, or similar) and ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).

• Experience with data versioning and management tools (DVC, Delta Lake, etc.).

• Strong grasp of distributed systems, containerization (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes).

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation).

• Familiarity with high-performance computing (HPC) and model optimization at scale.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; ability to work cross-functionally with autonomy teams.

Why Join Coco?

• Be a founding member of a mission-critical team driving robotics innovation.

• Work on a multi-modal autonomy stack fueled by real-world data.

• Build scalable ML infrastructure that has real-world impact on cities and local businesses.

• Join a fast-growing startup backed by a passionate leadership team.

• Enjoy a collaborative, mission-driven workplace committed to technology for good.