Demo

Machine Learning Hardware Engineer

Fintal Partners
Chicago, IL Full Time
POSTED ON 6/22/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 7/20/2026

We are building machine learning systems directly on custom hardware and are looking for engineers and researchers who want to help shape the technology from the ground up. This role offers the opportunity to design solutions from first principles, influence research direction, and see your work deployed in highly demanding, performance-critical environments.


Unlike many organizations where hardware, software, and infrastructure are owned by separate teams, we develop the full technology stack in-house. This enables engineers to work across layers, solve bottlenecks directly, and push the boundaries of performance, efficiency, and scalability. We welcome candidates from a variety of technical backgrounds; experience in financial markets is not required.


Key Responsibilities

  • Design and co-develop machine learning solutions alongside researchers, engineers, and domain experts, treating hardware constraints such as latency, resource utilization, and numerical precision as core design considerations.
  • Influence the direction of custom hardware platforms by translating machine learning requirements into architectural decisions.
  • Collaborate closely with hardware engineering teams to implement, validate, and deploy ML inference solutions from research prototypes through production.
  • Evaluate emerging research in areas such as neural architecture search, machine learning systems, model compression, and quantization, identifying opportunities to improve real-world performance and efficiency.
  • Drive innovation at the intersection of machine learning and hardware acceleration.


Skills & Experience

  • Strong understanding of hardware design constraints and trade-offs, including concepts such as pipelining, resource optimization, and fixed-point arithmetic.
  • Experience working with hardware development technologies such as VHDL, SystemVerilog, HLS tools, or ML-to-hardware frameworks including hls4ml, FINN, or Vitis AI.
  • Solid foundation in machine learning concepts, including neural network architectures, inference optimization, quantization techniques, and frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
  • Proficiency in Python, C , or similar languages for simulation, testing, tooling, and development.
  • Strong communication skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across multidisciplinary teams.


Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with ML compiler technologies such as MLIR, TVM, XLA, or similar frameworks used to optimize models for hardware targets.
  • Background in low-latency, real-time, or resource-constrained systems, including areas such as high-performance computing, signal processing, telecommunications, scientific computing, robotics, or similar domains.
  • Familiarity with hardware verification methodologies and tools such as SystemVerilog, UVM, or Cocotb.
  • Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.


Why Join Us

This is an opportunity to work at the intersection of machine learning, hardware architecture, and high-performance systems. You will have the freedom to influence both research and engineering decisions, collaborate with experts across multiple disciplines, and contribute to technology that directly impacts production systems. If you are motivated by solving complex technical challenges and building innovative solutions from the ground up, we would love to hear from you.

Salary : $500,000 - $1,500,000

If your compensation planning software is too rigid to deploy winning incentive strategies, it’s time to find an adaptable solution. Compensation Planning
Enhance your organization's compensation strategy with salary data sets that HR and team managers can use to pay your staff right. Surveys & Data Sets

What is the career path for a Machine Learning Hardware Engineer?

Sign up to receive alerts about other jobs on the Machine Learning Hardware Engineer career path by checking the boxes next to the positions that interest you.
Income Estimation: 
$97,257 - $120,701
Income Estimation: 
$123,167 - $152,295
Employees: Get a Salary Increase
View Core, Job Family, and Industry Job Skills and Competency Data for more than 15,000 Job Titles Skills Library

Job openings at Fintal Partners

  • Fintal Partners Chicago, IL
  • About the Company We’re partnered with a high-performance trading organization where technology, data, and market strategy converge. This team operates at ... more
  • Just Posted

  • Fintal Partners Chicago, IL
  • Our client is a leading quantitative trading firm continuing to invest heavily in its engineering organization, particularly across its platform and infras... more
  • Just Posted

  • Fintal Partners York, NY
  • We are seeking an experienced Machine Learning Manager to lead the development and deployment of advanced deep learning systems within a highly performance... more
  • 2 Days Ago

  • Fintal Partners York, NY
  • Our client is a leading quantitative trading firm seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to build and optimize next-generation ML infrastructure poweri... more
  • 2 Days Ago


Not the job you're looking for? Here are some other Machine Learning Hardware Engineer jobs in the Chicago, IL area that may be a better fit.

  • IMC Trading Chicago, IL
  • We are deploying machine learning directly onto custom hardware – and we want you to help drive it from the ground up. This is an initiative where you'll h... more
  • 19 Days Ago

  • IMC Chicago, IL
  • We are deploying machine learning directly onto custom hardware - and we want you to help drive it from the ground up. This is an initiative where you'll h... more
  • 9 Days Ago

AI Assistant is available now!

Feel free to start your new journey!