Principal Engineer - Machine Learning at REA Group

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

17 May, 26

Salary

0.0

Posted On

16 Feb, 26

Experience

10 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

AI, ML, AVMs, Propensity Models, Python, SQL, Infrastructure As Code, AWS, GCP, MLOps, CI/CD, Model Versioning, Monitoring, Drift Detection, Generative AI, LLMs

Industry

technology;Information and Media

Description

Make an impact shaping and advancing AI and ML initiatives in a collaborative team! Work for a leading provider of property data impacting millions of users! Permanent full time role based in Sydney We're REA With bold and ambitious goals, REA Group is changing the way the world experiences property. No matter where you're at on your property journey, we're here to help with every step - whether that's finding or financing your next home. Our people are the key to our success. At the heart of everything we do, is a thriving culture centred around high performance and care. We are purpose driven and collaborative, which drives innovation and our ability to make a real impact. As such, we’re proud to have been named in Australia’s “Top 5” Best Workplaces two years in a row, as well as being recognised as a Best Workplace for Women. Where the team fits in PropTrack is REA’s property data solutions business and a leading provider of property data, valuations and insights. It supports REA Group by leveraging advanced Automated Valuation Models (AVMs), propensity models and other AI models to deliver market‑leading products and solutions. This role sits within the PropTrack Data Science & Analytics (DSA) team, which: Develops and maintains AVMs, home price indices, and market metrics that describe how the residential property market is changing over time. Builds predictive models (such as propensity models) to help our customers identify residential real estate opportunities and manage risk. Delivers analytics and insight solutions that help our customers and consumers better understand the property market. Creates agentic solutions to deliver insights into key value drivers behind every residential property in Australia. What the role is all about Actively participate in the definition of a clear AI/ML technology strategy for PropTrack DSA, through collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. Partner with Engineering Managers to ensure that technical solutions are delivered in alignment with strategy, architectural principles, and system health goals. Lead the architecture and design of AI/ML systems (data pipelines, training/inference workflows, online and batch serving, monitoring and feedback loops) that span multiple squads and products. Promote exploration of emerging AI/ML technologies and practices and evaluate where they can meaningfully improve our products, workflows and platforms. Develop and drive actionable plans to improve the health and reliability of AI/ML systems in your area, including observability, data quality, performance and cost optimisation. Contribute hands‑on to the design and delivery of AI/ML solutions – setting high standards in code, architecture and experimentation. Guide teams in designing, coding, testing and deploying machine learning pipelines using Python, SQL, infrastructure as code and cloud platforms (AWS and GCP). Champion strong MLOps practices, including CI/CD for ML, model versioning, monitoring, drift detection, and retraining strategies. Ensure AI/ML solutions follow REA’s “you build it; you run it” philosophy, ensuring that they are compatible with systems to support incident management, on‑call responsibilities, and operational excellence performed by other teams. Lead the evaluation and integration of Generative AI and LLM‑based approaches, ensuring they are used safely and responsibly to solve meaningful customer and business problems. Ensure AI/ML solutions are robustly evaluated using appropriate offline metrics, experiments and A/B tests, and that results are communicated clearly to stakeholders. Serve as a trusted technical advisor to senior stakeholders across the business on matters related to AI/ML. Foster a vibrant internal AI/ML community through knowledge sharing, technical talks, guild participation, documentation and mentoring. Represent REA and PropTrack in the broader AI and data community, contributing to our external technology brand through talks, blogs or industry engagement where appropriate. Coach and mentor team members helping them deepen their AI/ML technical expertise. Who we’re looking for Preferably has experience in building solutions using residential property data that include property valuation and/or indexation. Has extensive experience as a Senior/Staff/Lead/Principal ML Engineer (or equivalent), with a track record of successfully delivering complex, production AI/ML solutions across multiple squads. Holds a PhD or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related technical discipline with a specialisation in Machine Learning, Data and AI, or has equivalent industry experience. Is an expert in Python and relevant ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit‑learn) and is highly proficient in developing models over both structured and unstructured data (e.g. images, text, time‑series). Has deep experience in one or more ML domains such as NLP/LLMs, recommender systems, deep learning, time‑series forecasting, or computer vision. Experience with Agentic AI chatbots is highly desirable. Has demonstrated knowledge and application of machine learning, statistical analysis, and modelling on large‑scale datasets in commercial environments. Is proficient with MLOps tooling and cloud platforms (AWS and/or GCP), including containerisation, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and monitoring. Is familiar with streaming and event‑driven architectures (e.g. Kafka, Flink, Pub/Sub) and understands how to apply them in ML systems (nice to have). Understands the ethical and regulatory implications of using AI and data in financial services and valuations, and designs solutions that respect privacy, fairness, and legal requirements. The REA experience The physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our people is something we’ll never stop caring about. This is a place to learn and grow. Some of our Perks & Benefits include: A hybrid and flexible approach to working Flexible leave options including, birthday leave and purchase additional leave Flexible parental leave offering for primary and secondary carers Our Because We Care program offers employees volunteering leave, community grants, matched payroll giving and our Community Café donates 100% of revenue to charity Hackdays so you can bring your big ideas to life Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion We are committed to providing a working environment that embraces and values diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe teams with diverse ideas and experiences are more creative, more eﬀective and fuel disruptive thinking. If you've got the skills, dedication and enthusiasm to learn but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. Join our Talent Neighbourhood Keen to be part of REA but didn't find a perfect match with this opportunity? Perhaps the timing isn't right? You should join our Talent Neighbourhood! #LI-HYBRID We are an Australian-based digital media company with a passion for real estate. Our leading brand is Australia’s biggest property resource, realestate.com.au. We also operate the number one commercial property site, realcommercial.com.au, and have businesses that help property developers and other brands advertise with us. Whilst we live in Australia, we’ve also got ventures in Asia and North America, and have the vision of expanding our footprint further. Everything we do is driven by our purpose to ‘change the way the world experiences property’ – from product innovation to our international investments.

Responsibilities

The Principal Engineer will actively participate in defining the AI/ML technology strategy for PropTrack DSA and lead the architecture and design of complex AI/ML systems spanning multiple squads and products. This includes contributing hands-on to solution delivery, championing strong MLOps practices, and evaluating emerging technologies like Generative AI and LLMs.