Principal Machine Learning Engineer, AI Platform

About Grab and Our Workplace

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.

Get to Know the Team

The AI Platform team empowers Grab teams to harness advanced AI efficiently and effectively. By developing cutting-edge tools and infrastructure, the team democratises AI capabilities, fosters innovation, and scales AI-powered solutions to elevate Grab's products and services.

Get to Know the Role

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer focused on Model Customization, you will report into the Head of Engineering, Machine Learning and Experimentation Platforms and work onsite in Grab One North Singapore office. You will lead initiatives in dataset creation, fine-tuning, optimization, and deployment strategies. Your contributions will drive rapid model customization for diverse business needs, positioning AI as a transformative force across Grab's operations.

The Critical Tasks You will Perform

• You will develop and advocate for long-term AI strategies to embed advanced AI capabilities across Grab's business domains.
• You will drive initiatives for dataset development (including annotation and synthetic data processing), fine-tuning techniques (e.g., adapters, LoRA, PEFT), and optimization strategies like quantization, pruning, and distillation.
• You will apply the latest AI research to design scalable, production-ready systems that generate measurable business value.
• You will design pipelines to streamline model customization, encompassing training, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring for operational efficiency.
• Collaborating with leadership, you will ensure organisational AI efforts align with strategic goals, identifying opportunities for impactful AI applications.
• You will mentor team members, cultivate innovation, and build technical expertise within engineering, research, and product teams.

What Essential Skills You will Need

• You have at least 10 years of mastery in deep learning, generative models, transformers, multimodal architectures, and reinforcement learning techniques.
• Proficiency with ML frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX, or Hugging Face, enabling advanced model creation and deployment.
• You have experience with methodologies for fine-tuning models, such as PEFT, LoRA, and adapters.
• You are competent in optimising models through quantization, pruning, distillation, or other techniques to improve efficiency and performance reliability.
• You have expertise in dataset development, annotation frameworks, synthetic data generation, and evaluation methodologies, ensuring datasets meet model requirements for customization.
• You understand how to translate newly-published AI techniques into practical tools or systems that scale efficiently.
• You have Python proficiency and experience with processing libraries and frameworks such as Ray, Spark, or Dask.
• You have familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), containerization, CI/CD, and microservices architecture to ensure your implementations are scalable and maintainable.
• You have experience deploying AI solutions in user-facing products alongside product teams, balancing innovation with functionality to deliver tangible outcomes.
• You can mentor technical teams, foster a culture of learning, and inspire innovation in fast-evolving technical environments.

Life at Grab

We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:

• We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
• With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
• Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
• We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
• Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours

What We Stand For at Grab

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that enables diverse Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. As an equal opportunity employer, we consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.