AI/ML Engineer - Work at Cengage in Illinois

AI/ML Engineer - Work Location: Illinois, USA We believe in the power and joy of learning At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping students around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education. Cengage's portfolio of businesses supports student choice by providing a range of pathways that help learners achieve their goals and lead a choice-filled life. Our culture values inclusion, engagement, and discovery Our business is driven by our strong culture, and we know that creating an inclusive workplace is absolutely essential to the success of our company and our learners, as well as our individual well-being. We recognize the value of diverse perspectives in everything we do, and strive to ensure employees of all levels and backgrounds feel empowered to voice their ideas and bring their authentic selves to work. We achieve these priorities through programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day. To learn more, please see https://www.cengagegroup.com/about/inclusion-and-belonging/. The AI/ML Engineer – Work builds AI-driven workforce and skills-based capabilities for Cengage's career and learning products. You will develop the models and systems that infer skills, verify competencies, and power skills-based matching and recommendations — the capabilities that underpin Cengage's skills graph and workforce platforms including Skills Verification. This role requires a builder who is excited about applied ML for skills, career, and learning data. The ideal candidate has worked on matching, ranking, recommendation, or representation learning problems, understands the workforce and skills domain, and can ship production ML features that meaningfully improve learner career outcomes. Key Responsibilities Skills & Workforce AI Development Develop skills inference models that extract competencies from content, assessments, and learner activity Build skills verification models powering the Skills Verification platform Create skills-based matching and recommendation systems for jobs, courses, and learning paths Develop career pathway recommendation and skills gap analysis features Integrate AI into Cengage workforce platforms including Infosec Skills and IQ Platform Integration & Engineering Integrate AI into workforce platforms including content, assessment, and lab systems Enable skills-based matching and recommendations across Cengage's workforce ecosystem Partner with platform engineering on API design, scaling, and production deployment Align to the NICE Framework and other recognized skills taxonomies where applicable Build evaluation and monitoring systems to measure and improve model accuracy and performance Measurement & Business Impact Track skills verification accuracy, recommendation quality, and adoption of AI-driven career tools Partner with product and data science on offline and online evaluation Drive integration completeness across Cengage's workforce product suite Maintain feature delivery cadence with weekly shipping discipline Partner with Governance on patent and IP considerations for novel approaches Required Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field 4+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 2 years focused on AI/ML Strong proficiency in Python with experience building production ML systems Hands-on experience with modern ML techniques including embeddings, ranking, and LLMs Experience with recommendation systems, matching, or representation learning Solid software engineering fundamentals including testing, CI/CD, and system design Experience with offline and online model evaluation Strong communication skills to work with product, data science, and platform teams Preferred Qualifications Prior experience in workforce tech, HR tech, or skills-based matching platforms Familiarity with skills taxonomies (NICE Framework, O*NET, ESCO, Lightcast) Experience with LLMs for classification, extraction, and zero-shot matching Background in cybersecurity education or adjacent technical learning domains Experience with behavioral pattern analysis or competency assessment Familiarity with agentic AI frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex) Tools & Technologies You should be comfortable with many of the following: Languages: Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, SQL AI/ML: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, OpenAI API, Anthropic API ML Infra: AWS SageMaker, MLflow, Weights & Biases, Ray Vector DBs: Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector Data: Snowflake, Databricks, Postgres, Spark DevOps: Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions, CI/CD pipelines Key Competencies ML Craft — fluent across classical ML and modern LLM-based approaches Product Orientation — connects model improvements to learner and user outcomes Shipping Mindset — delivers on weekly cadence with measured impact Domain Curiosity — invests in understanding skills, workforce, and career dynamics Evaluation Rigor — designs offline and online evaluation thoughtfully Collaboration — partners effectively with product, research, and platform engineering What We Offer Opportunity to shape AI at scale across a global learning company Direct impact on business outcomes, product, and workforce productivity Access to cutting-edge AI tools, platforms, and technologies Collaborative team environment focused on innovation and continuous improvement Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits Professional development and learning opportunities Flexible work arrangements with remote/hybrid options Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws. Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at accommodations.ta@cengage.com. About Cengage Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education. Compensation At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy. The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location.  Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range. In this position,  you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program.  This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below. 10% Annual: Individual Target $150,000.00 - $200,000.00 USD Additional Locations: United States