---
title: 'Senior Machine Learning Specialist at Hamster'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-machine-learning-specialist-hamster-san-francisco-vjf28s1hze4f'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Machine Learning Specialist at Hamster

- **Company:** Hamster
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $150k–$250k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-10-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hamster/c8dd2a3b-84b1-4928-9acb-8d15caaab0bc

## Job description

You will be responsible for developing and implementing machine learning solutions that power our AI-native platform. This role requires expertise in custom model development, transformer architectures, and production deployment of ML systems.

## RESPONSIBILITIES

- Design and develop custom machine learning models for specific business use cases.
- Implement and optimize transformer architectures for natural language processing tasks.
- Develop and maintain ML pipelines for data preprocessing, model training, and inference.
- Work with large language models and implement fine-tuning strategies.
- Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and optimize their performance.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to deploy ML models in production environments.
- Monitor and maintain model performance in production, implementing retraining strategies as needed.
- Conduct research on emerging ML techniques and evaluate their applicability to our platform.
- Mentor junior ML engineers and contribute to best practices within the team.

## REQUIRED SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

- Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 5+ years of experience in machine learning development and deployment.
- Strong programming skills in Python and experience with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar).
- Deep understanding of transformer architectures and their applications in NLP.
- Experience with large language models and fine-tuning techniques.
- Proficiency in implementing and optimizing RAG systems.
- Experience with ML model deployment and production monitoring.
- Strong understanding of data preprocessing, feature engineering, and model evaluation techniques.
- Experience with cloud platforms and ML infrastructure (AWS SageMaker, Google Vertex AI, or similar).
- Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills.

## PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Experience with MLOps and ML pipeline orchestration tools.
- Knowledge of distributed training and model optimization techniques.
- Experience with vector databases and similarity search algorithms.
- Familiarity with reinforcement learning and multi-agent systems.

## About Hamster

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Hamster is an AI-native product planning workspace that enables teams to align on direction and let AI agents execute delivery.
- **Entity Type**: Private (stage not publicly disclosed; likely early-stage with equity compensation)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Names not publicly disclosed (company led by experienced product delivery veterans)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-native software development lifecycle / Product engineering
- **Target customers**: B2B – product teams, engineering teams, and enterprise organizations using AI coding tools
- **Mission / purpose**: Keep teams aligned so AI can deliver the right thing, faster.

## Products & Services
- **[Hamster (Workspace)](https://tryhamster.com/)**: AI-powered product planning platform where humans and AI teammates share context, align on briefs, and ship together. Integrates with issue trackers, coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.), and supports two-way sync.
- **[Taskmaster (Open-Source CLI)](https://github.com/eyaltoledano/claude-task-master)**: Free, open-source CLI for AI-assisted task management. Generates structured plans with acceptance criteria for coding agents. 1.5M+ downloads, 25K+ GitHub stars.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Taskmaster has 1.5M+ downloads and 25K+ GitHub stars; Hamster is used by teams at Lenovo, SAP, Salesforce, Dell, Accenture, Hearst, and FICO
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Not publicly announced
- **Growth Signals**: Claims 7x faster delivery speed for users; shipping to customers multiple times a day; rapidly expanding integrations and features (Cloud Agents, Routines, Goals, Blueprints)

## Competitive Advantages
- **AI-native by design**: Built from the ground up for teams where both humans and AI agents are first-class participants, unlike legacy tools retrofitted with AI.
- **Shared context (Context Graph)**: Captures reasoning, decisions, and team knowledge so every coding agent works from the same understanding – reducing misalignment.
- **Works with any AI coding tool**: Integrates via CLI and MCP server with Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Cline, and many others.
- **Open-source credibility**: Taskmaster proved the concept at scale (1.5M downloads) and drove industry adoption of planning modes.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling from single-developer planning (Taskmaster) to multi-team, enterprise-aligned product delivery.
- Building the “Direction, Discovery, Delivery, Knowledge” framework to turn briefs into shipped features with minimal ceremony.
- Expanding enterprise features (roles, audit, workspace topology) and deepening integrations with existing project management ecosystems.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Special Forces Only”—seeks highly productive individuals who thrive in a fast-paced, AI-native environment. Values include autonomy, accountability, attention to detail, mastery, and work-life balance.
- **Work policy**: In-person in San Francisco for most roles; hybrid option available for some positions (e.g., Senior JavaScript Engineer listed as Hybrid).
- **Compensation**: $150K – $250K plus early-stage equity for technical roles.
- **Engineering culture**: Uses Hamster to build Hamster; ships to customers multiple times a day. No sprints, no story points, no grooming—focus on briefs and rapid delivery. Modern stack: Next.js, NestJS, Supabase, GCP, Cloudflare, AI/ML tools.
- **Impact**: Join a small, high-leverage team shaping the next generation of product development workflows.

## Sources
1. [tryhamster.com – Homepage](https://tryhamster.com/)
2. [tryhamster.com – About](https://tryhamster.com/about)
3. [tryhamster.com – Careers](https://tryhamster.com/careers)
4. [tryhamster.com – Latest Updates](https://tryhamster.com/latest)
5. [tryhamster.com – Documentation](https://tryhamster.com/docs)
6. [jobs.ashbyhq.com – Career Listings](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hamster)

## Other roles at Hamster

- [Open Application](https://feeny.ai/job/open-application-hamster-san-francisco-fpkrh49bxf7a) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Integration Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-integration-engineer-hamster-san-francisco-f6ywfst7fnc0) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Javascript Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-javascript-engineer-hamster-san-francisco-1xtazv2ykn54) — San Francisco, CA