Senior AI/ML Platform Engineer

Build your best future with the Johnson Controls team

As a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, our mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places and the planet. Join a winning team that enables you to build your best future! Our teams are uniquely positioned to support a multitude of industries across the globe. You will have the opportunity to develop yourself through meaningful work projects and learning opportunities. We strive to provide our employees with an experience, focused on supporting their physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing. Become a member of the Johnson Controls family and thrive in an empowering company culture where your voice and ideas will be heard - your next great opportunity is just a few clicks away!

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and bonus plan
• Paid vacation/holidays/sick time
• Comprehensive benefits package including 401K, medical, dental, and vision care
• On the job/cross training opportunities
• Encouraging and collaborative team environment
• Dedication to safety through our Zero Harm policy

What you will do:

Johnson Controls International (JCI) is seeking a Senior ML Platform Engineer to drive the strategy, architecture, and delivery of our next-generation AI and Machine Learning platforms. This senior role is responsible for designing scalable, secure, and production-grade ML/LLM infrastructure on Azure, enabling enterprise-wide adoption of advanced AI and generative AI capabilities.

As a senior technical leader, you will shape platform standards, influence architectural direction, and mentor engineering teams while working across real-time inference, automation, and large-scale distributed systems.

How you will do it:

• ML Platform Architecture & MLOps Leadership (Azure-Focused)
• Architect, lead, and optimize complex ML/LLM pipelines on Azure ML, defining best practices for CI/CD, testing automation, and secure deployment across environments.
• Drive the operationalization of large-scale LLMs (GPT, LLaMA, Claude, etc.), ensuring maintainability, observability, and model lifecycle efficiency.
• Define Terraform based IaC patterns and oversee provisioning of compute clusters (AKS, AML Compute), networking, and storage for ML workloads.
• Establish governance, drift monitoring, and enterprise grade model management practices.

• Architect high availability, low latency inference environments using Azure Kubernetes Service, serverless compute (Azure Functions), and distributed microservice patterns.
• Design and scale advanced RAG pipelines using vector databases such as Azure Cognitive Search, Redis, or FAISS, integrated with frameworks like Microsoft Agent Framework.
• Set standards for Azure security (RBAC, identity, audit), logging, observability, and compliance across ML/AI environments.
• Automation, CI/CD, and Platform Reliability
• Lead the creation of reusable, enterprise-wide Azure DevOps CI/CD templates for ML assets, ensuring consistency across data science teams.
• Champion automated testing, gating, rollback strategies, quality controls, and monitoring for ML service deployments.
• Establish platform wide SRE practices for ML systems, including reliability, scalability, and cost optimization frameworks.
• Partner with Data Science, Cloud Architecture, and Product teams to deliver highly impactful AI solutions that scale globally.
• Provide architectural guidance for real-time AI, conversational AI, enterprise search, analytics, and summarization workloads powered by LLMs.
• Mentor ML engineers and advocate for engineering excellence, design reviews, and knowledge-sharing across teams.
• Influence JCI's AI platform roadmap, standards, and long-term architectural strategy.

What we look for:

Required

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in ML engineering, platform engineering, data engineering, or cloud architecture roles.
• Deep experience deploying and scaling ML systems on Azure, including Azure ML, AKS, Azure DevOps, and distributed compute.
• Significant hands-on experience with Terraform and cloud-native architectural patterns at enterprise scale.
• Proven background in building secure, automated ML/LLM systems and managing full model lifecycles in production.
• Technical Expertise
• Expert proficiency in Python (PyTorch, Transformers, LangChain), Terraform, and Bash/PowerShell.
• Advanced experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and GPU-accelerated inference on AKS.
• Strong understanding of scalable inference patterns, LLM optimization, vector databases, and RAG architectures.
• Deep knowledge of CI/CD, model registries, artifact management, and ML observability tooling.
• Strategic thinker who can influence platform direction and drive architectural decisions.
• Strong leadership, documentation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to balance innovation, reliability, security, and cost to deliver business value at scale.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and guiding cross-functional technical teams.

Preferred

• Expertise in LLMOps, prompt orchestration frameworks (LangChain, Microsoft Agent Framework), and custom model deployment (open-weights, fine-tuning, quantization).
• Experience with IoT, smart building systems, or edge AI pipelines.
• Knowledge of enterprise governance, AI compliance, and responsible AI practices.
• Azure certifications (Azure Solutions Architect, Azure AI Engineer) and Terraform Associate.

This will be a hybrid role at either our Glendale, WI or Dallas, TX office.

HIRING SALARY RANGE: $126,000 - $189,000 (Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, location and alignment with market data.) This role offers a competitive Bonus plan that will take into account individual, group, and corporate performance. The posted salary range reflects the target compensation for this role. However, we recognize that exceptional candidates may bring unique skills and experiences that exceed the typical profile. If you believe your background warrants consideration beyond the stated range, we encourage you to apply. To support an efficient and fair hiring process, we may use technology assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help identify and evaluate candidates. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by human reviewers. This position includes a competitive benefits package. For details, please visit the About Us tab on the Johnson Controls Careers site at ;br>
#LI-Hybrid

Johnson Controls International plc. is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a qualified individual with a disability or any other characteristic protected by law. To view more information about your equal opportunity and non-discrimination rights as a candidate, visit EEO is the Law. If you are an individual with a disability and you require an accommodation during the application process, please visit here.