Senior Data/ML Engineer - Databricks Forecasting Platform | Remote

Headquarters: Remote

URL: https://www.toptal.com/

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior Data/ML Engineer to refactor, operationalize, and improve an existing time series forecasting platform that's already live and driving real business value. This is not a greenfield build - the focus is modernizing a Databricks-based forecasting system that's been maintained primarily by a single developer for years. You'll reduce technical debt, strengthen testing and observability, and raise the engineering bar on a system the business already depends on. If you'd rather bring discipline and maturity to an existing production system than start from a blank slate, this is built for that.

What You'll Do

* Review the current forecasting platform architecture and identify areas for improvement

* Refactor existing Databricks, Python, and PySpark implementations

* Move business logic out of Databricks notebooks and into reusable Python modules or packages

* Improve separation of concerns between orchestration and core business logic

* Establish stronger engineering standards and help define what "good" looks like for the platform

* Implement or improve automated testing practices and validation mechanisms for forecasting workflows

* Build or improve monitoring and observability, increasing visibility into how predictions are generated

* Help monitor model behavior and operational health over time

* Improve reliability of scheduled training workflows, reducing manual intervention on failure

* Improve failure handling, retries, and overall workflow resilience

* Maintain and extend existing forecasting capabilities as needed

What You Bring

* Strong professional experience with Databricks, including workspaces, notebooks, scheduled workflows, and CI/CD processes

* Strong Python engineering experience, including designing reusable modules or packages

* Strong PySpark experience with production data pipelines or distributed data processing

* Experience refactoring production code and improving maintainability

* Familiarity with time series forecasting concepts and workflows

* Ability to understand and work effectively within an existing, unfamiliar codebase

* Experience improving software quality, testing strategy, and engineering standards

* Experience implementing automated testing practices

* Experience improving monitoring, observability, or operational visibility for production systems

* Strong judgment around technical debt, refactoring priorities, and maintainable architecture

* Ability to work with existing systems rather than only building from scratch

Why This Role

* Real production impact: Improve a system the business already relies on, not a proof-of-concept

* Engineering maturity focus: Bring testing, observability, and maintainability to a platform that's outgrown its current state

* Meaningful ownership: Help define engineering standards for the forecasting platform going forward

* Flexible location: Preference for Toronto or St. Louis, but open to remote consultants globally with North American working-hours overlap

How to Apply

Ready to bring engineering rigor to a production forecasting platform? Apply through Toptal here: https://www.toptal.com/talent/apply

To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/toptal-senior-data-ml-engineer-databricks-forecasting-platform-remote