This listing pays about $252,743 a year. Across 28 open principal machine learning engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $212,500 to $299,000 and the median is $274,000. That is inside the middle half of those listings, 8% below the median.

Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer salaries by state · Check your own pay

How AI is used in this kind of work

Among computer occupations, all other, AI is already used for a large share of the tasks. Measured exposure for computer occupations, all other: 31% (high).

Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.

Check how this applies to your own job

Atlassian has filed one layoff notice in the last twelve months, covering 63 workers, most recently March 2026. These are public filings with state labor departments, and an open role can sit alongside them. See the filings

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Machine learning

About the job

Overview

As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you will drive the development and implementation of cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, training sophisticated models, and collaborating with product, engineering, and analytics teams to build AI functionalities into Atlassian products and services. Your daily responsibilities will encompass a broad spectrum of tasks — designing system and model architectures, conducting rigorous experimentation and model evaluations, and providing guidance to emerging ML engineers. Your role is pivotal, ensuring AI's transformative potential is realized across our offerings.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Execution

Drive complex decisions that impact the work of teams and change their technical direction over multiple quarters

Regularly tackle the largest and most complex problems on the team, from technical design to launch

Set the direction of systems and capabilities, balancing progress over perfection

Determine plans-of-attack on large projects and solve complex architecture challenges

Model Development & Experimentation

Design, develop, and deploy production-grade ML models (e.g., ranking, retrieval, LLM-based systems) to optimize user experience and achieve business objectives

Conduct meticulous experimentation and model evaluations, backing decisions with data

Develop robust feature engineering practices to ingest, process, and serve features for offline training and online inference at scale

Oversee end-to-end deployment of ML solutions into production, ensuring continuous evaluation, monitoring, and improvement

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and engineering teams to integrate AI/ML capabilities into products

Partner across engineering teams to take on company-wide programs spanning multiple projects

Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Mentorship & Organizational Impact

Mentor and guide junior and senior engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning

Actively share knowledge and expertise through mentoring and coaching beyond direct reports

Contribute to programs of work that scale across the department

Identify, solve, and bridge gaps/problems across teams using experience and expertise

Decision Making & Direction

Quickly collate and analyze key decision parameters, balancing speed, risk, and impact appropriately

Limit ambiguity and risk by experimenting and prototyping

Understand how contributions of multiple capabilities fit into larger products and platforms

Compensation

At Atlassian, we strive to design equitable, explainable, and competitive compensation programs. We follow consistent hiring practices and account for each candidate's skills, knowledge, and experience when setting base pay within the range.

Please visit go.atlassian.com/payzones for more information on which locations are included in each of our geographic pay zones. However, please confirm the zone for your specific location with your recruiter.

This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.

Pay Ranges

In The United States or Remote , we have three geographic pay zones. For this role, our current base pay ranges for new hires in each zone are:

Zone A : $236,700 - $309,025

Zone B : $213,030 - $278,123

Zone C : $196,461 - $256,491

Qualifications

Benefits & Perks

Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more. To learn more, visit go.atlassian.com/perksandbenefits .

About Atlassian

At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together.

We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.

To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh .

In line with local law, identity verification (which may include use of biometric data) is a condition of employment with Atlassian for employment fraud purposes.