H-1B Visa Lead Machine Learning Engineer Jobs
Lead Machine Learning Engineer jobs at H-1B visa sponsoring employers require a bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, statistics, or a closely related field, making the role a strong fit for specialty occupation classification. These positions carry senior-level LCA prevailing wage requirements, so targeting employers with active H-1B filing history matters from the start.
Find H-1B Visa Lead Machine Learning Engineer JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 432+ Lead Machine Learning Engineer jobs
See all 432+ Lead Machine Learning Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Lead Machine Learning Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsResponsibilities
About the Team
The TikTok U.S. Data Security (USDS) team is responsible for the security, integrity, and compliance of TikTok’s data within the United States. The Data Platform Team builds a scalable, reliable, cost-efficient infrastructure that ensures data integrity and empowers every business unit to win through self-service tools and scientific insights.
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join our team as a technical lead, driving the architecture and execution of our next-generation AI Risk & Compliance Intelligence Platform and Intelligent Data Agent Ecosystem. In this role, you will be instrumental in bridging the gap between standard prompt engineering and native, model-driven reasoning frameworks. You will tackle complex ML challenges around offline/online evaluation, synthetic data generation for small-sample scenarios, and automated agent skill optimizations across Data & Engineering workflows (DA/DS/DE/SRE).
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and scale robust LLM evaluation architecture, including automated offline datasets, metric suites, and benchmarking pipelines to measure prompt and model performance.
- Innovate on LLM-driven synthetic data generation methodologies to tackle data scarcity bottlenecks and systematically evaluate long-tail/edge-case risk scenarios.
- Advance beyond criteria-based prompt engineering by extracting deep risk patterns directly from complex case data to build native, ML-driven decision models and reasoning abstractions.
- Architect, evaluate, and continuously optimize modular agent skills and tools tailored for Data Science, Analytics, Data Engineering, and SRE workflows to maximize tool-use accuracy, execution efficiency, and task success rates.
- Implement advanced evaluation methodologies (such as LLM-as-a-judge and multi-agent benchmarking) across both risk intelligence and agentic ecosystems.
- Provide technical leadership by establishing core ML system design patterns, benchmarking standards, and engineering best practices, while translating complex operational requirements into scalable machine learning solutions across cross-functional partnerships.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Experience: 5+ years of software/ML engineering experience with a strong track record of designing, building, and deploying ML/LLM systems in production.
- Generative AI & LLMs: Deep hands-on expertise with LLM architectures, fine-tuning, RAG, prompt tuning, and agentic frameworks.
- Evaluation & Data Bootstrapping: Demonstrated experience building robust LLM evaluation frameworks (LLM-as-a-judge, automated benchmark pipelines) and tackling data scarcity/imbalance problems.
- Core Engineering: Strong coding skills alongside production experience with scalable data processing pipelines.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior domain experience in Risk & Compliance Intelligence and Automated Decision Systems.
- Hands-on experience with synthetic dataset generation or bootstrapping models for cold-start scenarios.
- Experience building AI tools or agents for technical personas (Data Analysts, Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Data SRE).
- Demonstrated ability to serve as a founding technical lead on ambiguous, high-impact initiative pods.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy – a mission we work towards every day. We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $198360 - $416100 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
Responsibilities
About the Team
The TikTok U.S. Data Security (USDS) team is responsible for the security, integrity, and compliance of TikTok’s data within the United States. The Data Platform Team builds a scalable, reliable, cost-efficient infrastructure that ensures data integrity and empowers every business unit to win through self-service tools and scientific insights.
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join our team as a technical lead, driving the architecture and execution of our next-generation AI Risk & Compliance Intelligence Platform and Intelligent Data Agent Ecosystem. In this role, you will be instrumental in bridging the gap between standard prompt engineering and native, model-driven reasoning frameworks. You will tackle complex ML challenges around offline/online evaluation, synthetic data generation for small-sample scenarios, and automated agent skill optimizations across Data & Engineering workflows (DA/DS/DE/SRE).
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and scale robust LLM evaluation architecture, including automated offline datasets, metric suites, and benchmarking pipelines to measure prompt and model performance.
- Innovate on LLM-driven synthetic data generation methodologies to tackle data scarcity bottlenecks and systematically evaluate long-tail/edge-case risk scenarios.
- Advance beyond criteria-based prompt engineering by extracting deep risk patterns directly from complex case data to build native, ML-driven decision models and reasoning abstractions.
- Architect, evaluate, and continuously optimize modular agent skills and tools tailored for Data Science, Analytics, Data Engineering, and SRE workflows to maximize tool-use accuracy, execution efficiency, and task success rates.
- Implement advanced evaluation methodologies (such as LLM-as-a-judge and multi-agent benchmarking) across both risk intelligence and agentic ecosystems.
- Provide technical leadership by establishing core ML system design patterns, benchmarking standards, and engineering best practices, while translating complex operational requirements into scalable machine learning solutions across cross-functional partnerships.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Experience: 5+ years of software/ML engineering experience with a strong track record of designing, building, and deploying ML/LLM systems in production.
- Generative AI & LLMs: Deep hands-on expertise with LLM architectures, fine-tuning, RAG, prompt tuning, and agentic frameworks.
- Evaluation & Data Bootstrapping: Demonstrated experience building robust LLM evaluation frameworks (LLM-as-a-judge, automated benchmark pipelines) and tackling data scarcity/imbalance problems.
- Core Engineering: Strong coding skills alongside production experience with scalable data processing pipelines.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior domain experience in Risk & Compliance Intelligence and Automated Decision Systems.
- Hands-on experience with synthetic dataset generation or bootstrapping models for cold-start scenarios.
- Experience building AI tools or agents for technical personas (Data Analysts, Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Data SRE).
- Demonstrated ability to serve as a founding technical lead on ambiguous, high-impact initiative pods.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy – a mission we work towards every day. We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $198360 - $416100 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
See all 432+ H-1B Visa Lead Machine Learning Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new H-1B Visa Lead Machine Learning Engineer Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding H-1B Visa Sponsorship as a Lead Machine Learning Engineer
Align your credentials to specialty occupation standards
Pull the O*NET profile for Machine Learning Engineers and map your degree and work history directly to the listed knowledge areas. USCIS scrutinizes whether your specific field of study connects to the role, not just whether you hold any bachelor's degree.
Target employers with verified H-1B filing history
Use Migrate Mate to find Lead Machine Learning Engineer roles at employers with documented LCA sponsorship records. Filtering by verified filing history cuts time wasted on companies that have never navigated the H-1B process for technical leadership roles.
Check prevailing wages before salary negotiations
Run the OFLC Wage Search for your target metro before accepting any offer. Lead-level ML roles typically fall at Wage Level III or IV, and your offered salary must meet or exceed the certified LCA wage or USCIS will issue a Request for Evidence.
Confirm each worksite gets its own certified LCA
If your role involves work at client sites, data center locations, or multiple offices, each distinct worksite address needs a separately certified LCA on file before you begin work there. Raise this with your employer's immigration counsel before onboarding, not after.
Front-load your petition with technical depth
RFEs on Lead ML Engineer petitions often challenge whether the role truly requires a specialized degree. Work with your employer to draft the job duties description around specific technical requirements, such as model architecture decisions and research-to-production pipelines, that only a degreed specialist can perform.
Plan your cap-gap timeline if you're on OPT
H-1B status is granted for up to three years and extendable to a six-year maximum, but the cap selection rules have changed recently. If you're transitioning from F-1 OPT, confirm your employer's planned filing window with USCIS to avoid any gap in work authorization between OPT expiration and H-1B activation.
H-1B Visa Lead Machine Learning Engineer: Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Lead Machine Learning Engineer role qualify as an H-1B specialty occupation?
Yes. Lead Machine Learning Engineer roles typically qualify as a specialty occupation because they require at least a bachelor's degree in computer science, statistics, applied mathematics, or a closely related field to perform the core duties. USCIS evaluates the position itself, so your employer's job description should tie each responsibility directly to the theoretical and applied knowledge gained from that specific degree field.
Which employers sponsor H-1B visas for Lead Machine Learning Engineer positions?
Technology companies, financial services firms, healthcare analytics organizations, and research-driven enterprises are among the most active H-1B sponsors for senior ML roles. Rather than guessing which companies file, browse Lead Machine Learning Engineer listings on Migrate Mate, which surfaces only employers with verified LCA sponsorship history so you're not wasting applications on non-sponsors.
How does the prevailing wage requirement affect Lead Machine Learning Engineer H-1B petitions?
DOL assigns prevailing wages by occupation, experience level, and worksite location. Lead-level ML engineers are almost always classified at Wage Level III or IV, meaning the certified LCA wage is set at the higher end of the local market rate. Your employer must pay at least that amount for the entire H-1B validity period, so verify the wage tier during offer negotiation, not after signing.
Can I work at multiple office locations or client sites on a single H-1B?
Not without additional LCA filings. Each worksite where you perform H-1B duties needs its own certified LCA listing that specific address. For Lead ML Engineers who may rotate between headquarters, satellite offices, or client environments, your employer's immigration counsel must file and receive DOL certification for each location before work begins there.
What documentation strengthens an H-1B petition for a Lead Machine Learning Engineer?
USCIS looks for evidence that the role requires a specifically related degree, not just any bachelor's degree. Strong petitions include a detailed job duties letter that connects each responsibility to specialized knowledge, your academic transcripts and diploma, any published research or patents, and industry evidence showing that ML leadership roles in your sector standardly require the same degree background you hold.