Staff ML Engineer

Sword Health is on a mission to free two billion people from pain. 

With 67% of members achieving a pain-free life and a 70% reduction in surgery intent, at Sword, we are using AI Care to change lives, and save millions for our 25,000+ enterprise clients across three continents. Today, we hold the majority of industry patents, win 70% of competitive evaluations, and have raised more than $300 million from top venture firms like Founders Fund, Sapphire Ventures, General Catalyst, and Khosla Ventures.

Recognized as a Forbes Best Startup Employer in 2025, this award highlights our focus on being a destination for the best and brightest  talent. Not only have we experienced unprecedented growth since our market debut in 2020,  but we’ve also created a remarkable mission and value-driven environment that is loved by our growing team. With a recent valuation of $3 billion, we are in a phase of hyper growth and expansion, and we’re looking for individuals with passion, commitment, and energy to help us scale our global impact. 

Joining Sword means committing to a set of core values, chief amongst them to “do it for the patients” every day, and to always “deliver more than expected” on behalf of our members and clients.

This is an opportunity for you to make a significant difference on a massive scale as you work alongside 900+ (and growing!) talented colleagues, spanning three continents. Your charge? To help us build a pain-free world, powered by AI, enhanced by people — accessible to all.

The AI Team

The main goal of the AI team is to leverage AI and ML to provide high-quality clinical care at unprecedented levels of personalization and scale. In this regard, in close collaboration with the clinical team, we develop ML-powered features that identify the best course of action for each patient at any given moment or circumstance whilst employing a holistic perspective but also contemplating any relevant nuance. We also work on ensuring the overall experience is as close as possible to a 1:1 session with a Physical Therapist and thus play a crucial role in enabling the AI Care provided by Sword.

Examples of this are projects like “Phoenix” and all the decision support systems that empower our Physical Therapists to provide world-class care to our members

As for the near future, our focus will be on taking the degree of personalization and human touch of our AI care to a whole new level by leveraging the most recent developments in the Generative AI field.

• Lead projects of high scope and ambiguity often concerning new products or revenue streams;
• Play an important role in the definition of the roadmap by envisioning what the team should be betting on from a technical and strategic perspective as well as in the definition of the team’s priorities;
• Significantly contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and experience of how to build ML systems, with special emphasis on the Generative AI field;
• Provide significant input to executive leadership in regard to new strategic technical initiatives that the company should pursue following industry trends;
• Contribute to designing, building, evaluating, shipping, and improving Sword’s products by hands-on AI/ML development;
• Develop and maintain data processing pipelines for getting the data required to build and evaluate models;
• Work alongside the Product, Data & Engineering Teams to define and implement AI/ML-powered features for internal and external users;
• Proactively identify areas for improvement, by implementing processes that improve the team’s quality and speed of delivery;
• Solve highly ambiguous, shortly scoped, and highly complex technical problems regarding which past work of the team is of little-to-no use.

• 6+ years of professional experience in Machine Learning within an AI-oriented company;
• Deep technical knowledge of LLMs and Generative AI as a whole and proven experience shipping applications powered by such technology;
• Experience leading and owning complex and ambiguous projects from ideation to completion/maintenance;
• Hands-on experience implementing and maintaining production machine learning systems;
• Solid experience in SQL and Python as well as experience developing production software;
• Proficient knowledge of Python data stack (numpy, pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, etc);
• Experience providing technical oversight and mentoring colleagues;
• Ability to learn quickly and dive deep into new problems and fields;
• Ability to communicate concepts clearly and interface with both technical and non-technical stakeholders;
• An independent and self-driven approach, demonstrating the capability to work autonomously;
• Robust problem-solving skills coupled with adaptability in handling evolving and conflicting priorities;
• Proven track record in developing software applications that are both scalable and reliable.

• Experience working in a fast-paced environment and wearing different hats;
• Experience building data processing pipelines;
• Experience using cloud platforms like GCP or AWS.

• A stimulating, fast-paced environment with lots of room for creativity;
• A bright future at a promising high-tech startup company;
• Career development and growth, with a competitive salary;
• The opportunity to work with a talented team and to add real value to an innovative solution with the potential to change the future of healthcare;
• A stimulating environment with room for creativity;
• A flexible environment where you can control your hours (remotely) with unlimited vacation;
• Access to our health and well-being program (digital therapist sessions);
• Remote or Hybrid work policy.

• 30-minute call with the recruiter;
• 30-minute call with an initial screener;
• 1 take-home assignment (to be delivered within 1 week);
• 1h general skills and working principles interview;
• 1h mindset and cultural fit interview.

Portugal - Sword Benefits & Perks:

• Health, dental and vision insurance

• Meal allowance

• Equity shares

• Remote work allowance

• Flexible working hours

• Work from home

• Discretionary vacation

• Snacks and beverages

• English class

Note: Please note that this position does not offer relocation assistance. Candidates must possess a valid EU visa and be based in Portugal.

Sword Health, which includes SWORD Health, Inc. and Sword Health Professionals (consisting of Sword Health Care Providers, P.A., SWORD Health Care Providers of NJ, P.C., SWORD Health Care Physical Therapy Providers of CA, P.C.*) complies with applicable Federal and State civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of Age, Ancestry, Color, Citizenship, Gender, Gender expression, Gender identity, Gender information, Marital status, Medical condition, National origin, Physical or mental disability, Pregnancy, Race, Religion, Caste, Sexual orientation, and Veteran status.