---
title: 'Machine Learning Engineer, Ops at Cantina'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-ops-cantina-united-states-europe-zr6h1nf499dk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Machine Learning Engineer, Ops at Cantina

- **Company:** Cantina
- **Location:** United States / Europe
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/cantina/e39ea193-e746-4062-b604-51ef3cb0b913

## Job description

About Cantina: Cantina Labs is a social AI company, developing a suite of advanced real-time models that push the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism. We bring characters to life, transforming how people tell stories, connect, and create. We build and power ecosystems. Cantina, our flagship social AI platform, is just the beginning. If you're excited about the potential AI has to shape human creativity and social interactions, join us in building the future!

About the Role: We are looking for an MLOps Engineer to build and scale the inference infrastructure for our generative audio models, including Text-to-Speech (TTS), voice conversion, and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). You will be responsible for designing and deploying high-performance systems that ensure low-latency, reliable, and scalable model serving for both streaming and batch inference. This role is central to bridging the gap between research and production, ensuring our audio models are optimized for performance and cost-efficiency as we scale.

What You’ll Do:

- Design and maintain inference infrastructure for generative audio model architectures.
- Implement and manage high-performance inference engines.
- Orchestrate service deployments using Kubernetes (K8S), implementing advanced autoscaling paradigms to handle varying traffic loads efficiently.
- Develop and automate robust CI/CD pipelines to streamline the testing and deployment of model artifacts and inference configurations.
- Monitor production systems, establishing observability practices to track latency, resource utilization, and overall model performance.
- Collaborate closely with research teams to optimize model serving paths and evaluate various inference strategies.
- Optimize inference performance for both streaming and batch applications.

What You’ll Bring:

- Deep understanding of modern audio model architectures (e.g., TTS, ASR) and their specific inference requirements.
- Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes (K8S), container orchestration, and implementing autoscaling strategies for production workloads.
- Solid background in MLOps, including CI/CD automation and managing scalable cloud infrastructure.
- Proficiency in software engineering principles and experience with Python or Go for infrastructure tooling and backend services.
- Experience with GPU-accelerated inference and performance profiling techniques.
- Familiarity with high-performance inference engines (e.g., Triton Inference Server, vLLM-Omni) is a plus.

Compensation: The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is between $125,000-$165,000 (€110,000-€145,000). When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered, including skills, experience, job scope, location, and competitive compensation market data.

Benefits for U.S.-based roles:

- Competitive salary and generous company equity
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance – 99.99% of premiums covered by Cantina
- 42 days of paid time off, including:
- 15 PTO days
- 10 sick days
- 15 company holidays
- 2 floating holidays
- Generous parental leave & fertility support
- 401(k) retirement savings plan
- Lifestyle spending account – $500/month to use however you’d like
- Complimentary lunch and snacks for in-office employees
- One Medical membership, and more!

## About Cantina

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Cantina is a social AI platform that lets users create, chat with, and share AI characters that talk, perform, and interact in real-time.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed Stage)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Not publicly listed; key leadership includes Co-Founder Prakash Ramakrishna

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Social AI / Social Media / Software Development
- **Target customers**: B2C (consumers), with a creator/developer ecosystem for building AI characters
- **Mission or purpose**: "Infinite Creativity Unlocked" — bringing AI characters to life to transform how people tell stories, connect, and create.

## Products & Services
- **Cantina App**: A social media platform where users chat with friends and AI, create video messages, share with friends, and "set bots free." The flagship product is a mobile-first experience focused on real-time AI character interaction.
- **Cantina AI Models**: A suite of advanced real-time models pushing the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism for AI characters.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding — Seed Round (1 investor, amount undisclosed); 148 employees as of mid-2026
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: 1 seed investor (name not publicly disclosed); member of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew 7.2% YoY (+29 people) to 148 employees
  - Monthly website traffic growth of +47.7% and yearly growth of +149.8%
  - Active job postings: 13 (yearly job posting growth of +44.4%)
  - Operates in 15 countries with 4 offices (San Francisco HQ, Sunnyvale, Brooklyn NY, and another Brooklyn location)
  - High LinkedIn follower growth (+9.9% yearly) reaching 22,462 followers

## Competitive Advantages
- **Real-time AI character technology**: Builds proprietary real-time models for expression, personality, and realism — a technical moat in the rapidly growing social AI space.
- **Creator ecosystem**: Allows users to build and release their own AI characters, creating a network effect and UGC flywheel.
- **First-mover in social AI**: One of the earliest platforms combining social networking with generative AI characters for mass consumer use.
- **Strong talent pool**: Employees recruited from top tech companies including Airtime (18), Aircore (26), Meta (4), Grammarly (4), TikTok (4), Amazon (3), and BeReal (4).

## Strategic Focus
- **Product expansion**: Actively hiring for Kotlin Multiplatform Engineer, iOS Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer (Images), and Media Software Engineer (Speech) — indicating a push toward cross-platform mobile, image generation, and speech capabilities.
- **Safety and trust**: Joined the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) in 2025 and invested heavily in trust & safety infrastructure, signaling a commitment to responsible AI.
- **Monetization and growth**: Hiring a Head of Product Marketing, Creator Partner Manager, and Product Managers for Video and Web — suggesting moves toward monetization, creator partnerships, and web-based experiences.
- **Research-driven**: Actively recruiting ML engineers and research talent, with 10% of workforce in Research roles.

## Why Work Here
- **Cutting-edge AI work**: Engineers work on real-time AI models for speech, images, and character interaction — at the intersection of generative AI and social media.
- **Strong technical culture**: 66 employees (15% of workforce) in Technical roles, with a tech stack including PyTorch, TensorFlow, Kubernetes, Docker, GCP, Snowflake, and modern mobile frameworks (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Swift).
- **Growth stage**: At 148 employees and 13 open roles, this is a growth-stage startup where new hires can have outsized impact.
- **Flexible locations**: Offices in San Francisco (HQ), Sunnyvale, and Brooklyn (two locations) — with a distributed workforce across 15 countries.
- **Creative, fun environment**: Company culture emphasizes creativity ("Minister of Bots" is a real title) and viral social experiences.
- **Notable perks**: Team has a dedicated Comedy Director and "Chief Horse Officer" — indicating a playful, unconventional culture.
- **High talent density**: Recruits from top AI and social media companies (Meta, TikTok, Grammarly, Amazon, Apple, Netflix alumni).

## Sources
1. [cantina.com](https://cantina.com/)
2. [LinkedIn - Cantina Labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/cantinaai)
3. [Cantina Careers (Ashby)](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/cantina)
4. [Cantina Careers Page](https://cantina.com/careers)

## Other roles at Cantina

- [Research Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/research-intern-cantina-singapore-0t2dg9nfd7y1) — Singapore
- [Machine Learning Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-intern-cantina-singapore-wnsca7rtewty) — Singapore
- [Product Manager, Growth - Lifecycle](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-growth-lifecycle-cantina-san-francisco-fs4n56y79qc2) — San Francisco, CA
- [Payments & Risk Operations Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/payments-risk-operations-manager-cantina-bay-area-8vxjey1a9qp4) — Bay Area, OR
- [Media Software Engineer, Speech (Senior-Staff Levels)](https://feeny.ai/job/media-software-engineer-speech-senior-staff-levels-cantina-sunnyvale-amr9rvpwq2gp) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Machine Learning Engineer - Voice Conversion](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-voice-conversion-cantina-united-states-europe-fpbamgtxrfs0) — United States / Europe
- [Machine Learning Engineer, Speech - Joint Audio-Video Modeling](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-speech-joint-audio-video-modeling-cantina-united-81jhte7m6h5q) — United States / Europe
- [Director, Brand Marketing](https://feeny.ai/job/director-brand-marketing-cantina-los-angeles-dhngs7psnehq) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Senior Creative Strategist, Performance Marketing](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-creative-strategist-performance-marketing-cantina-remote-gxzcxj5fv99e)
- [Staff Software Engineer, Backend](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-backend-cantina-los-angeles-y3jk4ycetkqy) — Los Angeles, CA / San Francisco, CA