1. What is a Machine Learning Engineer at Hudl?

At Hudl, the role of a Machine Learning Engineer is pivotal to our mission of helping teams and athletes win. You are not just building models in isolation; you are building the "nervous system" of our products. Whether you are working within the Hardware Group on our smart camera, Hudl Focus, or the Global Football Metrics team, your work directly bridges the gap between state-of-the-art AI research and real-world application.

This position is heavily focused on MLOps and Infrastructure. You will be responsible for the pipelines that transport neural networks from training clusters to production environments—which could be cloud-based analytics platforms or tens of thousands of edge devices in stadiums around the world. You will solve complex physical challenges, such as deploying updates to low-bandwidth environments, optimizing inference for limited hardware resources (like NVIDIA Jetson), and ensuring that our automated capture systems remain reliable across different sports and environments.

Ultimately, you are the engineer who ensures that a coach's tactical insight or a player's highlight reel is generated automatically, accurately, and instantly. You enable our Data Scientists to move faster and our products to see the game differently.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation for Hudl requires a mindset shift from pure algorithm development to systems engineering. You should view yourself as a builder of robust, scalable pipelines rather than just a model trainer.

Production MLOps Expertise – You must demonstrate that you have moved models out of notebooks and into the real world. Interviewers will evaluate your ability to design CI/CD pipelines, manage model versioning, and automate retraining workflows. You should be comfortable discussing the full lifecycle of ML, from data ingestion to inference monitoring.

Systems Thinking & Architecture – Particularly for Edge roles, you need to show you can design architectures that handle failure gracefully. You will be evaluated on your ability to manage constraints—storage, bandwidth, thermal limits, and latency. Be prepared to discuss strategies like canary releases, safe rollbacks, and "shadow mode" testing on hardware.

Collaborative Communication – You will act as the translator between Applied Machine Learning researchers and low-level Embedded Engineers or Software squads. You need to show that you can take abstract research requirements and translate them into deployable hardware or software realities.

Bias for Action – Hudl values autonomy. We look for candidates who see gaps and fill them without waiting for permission. Your interviews will probe for examples where you took initiative to solve ambiguous infrastructure problems or improve team efficiency.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process at Hudl is designed to be rigorous yet practical, mirroring the actual work you will do. It typically begins with a recruiter screen to align on your background and interest in sports technology. This is followed by a technical screen, often involving a coding task or a deep dive into your past projects, focusing specifically on MLOps challenges or Python proficiency.

The onsite stage (usually virtual) is comprehensive. You can expect a mix of coding interviews, system design sessions, and behavioral rounds. The system design round is particularly important for this role; you will likely be asked to architect a solution for deploying models to a fleet of devices or building a data ingestion pipeline for sports metrics. Hudl emphasizes a conversational style—interviewers want to see how you think through trade-offs, not just if you know the "right" answer.

Throughout the process, expect questions that test your "User Focus." Whether you are building for internal data scientists or external coaches, you must demonstrate that you care about the end-user experience. The atmosphere is generally transparent and supportive, reflecting our culture of trust.

This timeline illustrates the typical flow from application to offer. Use this to pace your preparation: focus on core coding skills for the early screens, then shift your energy toward system architecture and behavioral stories for the final loop.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed, you need to be prepared for deep technical discussions across several domains. We don't just ask "textbook" questions; we present scenarios based on real challenges we face with Hudl Focus and our analytics platforms.

MLOps & Infrastructure

This is the core of the role. You need to show mastery over the tools and processes that make ML scalable. Be ready to go over:

• CI/CD for ML: How to automate testing and deployment of models.
• Containerization: Deep knowledge of Docker and orchestration (Kubernetes or embedded equivalents).
• Model Lifecycle: Experience with tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, DVC, or SageMaker.
• Monitoring: How to detect data drift, concept drift, and inference latency in production.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a pipeline to retrain a player-tracking model automatically every week."
• "How would you handle a situation where a deployed model starts performing poorly on a specific type of camera angle?"
• "Explain your strategy for versioning large datasets and model artifacts simultaneously."

Edge AI & Hardware Constraints

If you are interviewing for the Hardware Group, this area is critical. You must understand the limitations of deploying to the "physical world." Be ready to go over:

• Optimization: Techniques like quantization, pruning, and using TensorRT.
• Device Management: OTA (Over-The-Air) updates, fleet management (AWS IoT Greengrass, Balena).
• NVIDIA Ecosystem: Familiarity with Jetson Nano/NX/Orin and DeepStream SDK.
• Resilience: Handling network failures and ensuring devices recover gracefully.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "We have 10,000 cameras with limited bandwidth. How do you push a 500MB model update safely?"
• "How would you monitor the thermal impact of a new model running on an edge device?"

Software Engineering Fundamentals

You are an engineer first. Clean, maintainable code is a non-negotiable requirement. Be ready to go over:

• Python Proficiency: Writing robust, production-grade Python (not just scripts).
• Infrastructure as Code: Using Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Testing: Unit testing for ML code and integration testing for pipelines.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through how you structure a Python library for shared ML utilities."
• "Refactor this messy data processing script into a maintainable class structure."

5. Key Responsibilities

As a Machine Learning Engineer at Hudl, your day-to-day work is dynamic. You will spend a significant portion of your time building and scaling infrastructure. This means writing the code that automates the training, evaluation, and deployment of models. You aren't just handing off a model file; you are owning the pipeline that ensures that model reaches a camera in a high school gym or a server analyzing Premier League data.

Collaboration is a daily reality. You will work with Data Scientists to understand their compute needs and help them optimize their code. You will partner with Embedded Engineers to ensure your inference pipelines run smoothly on hardware. You might also work with Product Managers to define the technical feasibility of new "Tactical View" features.

You will also drive governance and reliability. This involves building "shadow mode" infrastructure to test candidate models silently on production devices before they go live. You will set up telemetry to monitor model health, ensuring that if a camera overheats or a model drifts, the team is alerted immediately. You are the guardian of the system's stability.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

We are looking for builders who understand the complexities of the physical and digital worlds.

• Must-Have Technical Skills:

  • Production MLOps: Proven experience building pipelines (CI/CD) for ML, not just cloud APIs.
  • Python: Expert-level proficiency in writing clean, modular code.
  • Containerization: Strong experience with Docker and Linux systems.
  • Infrastructure: Experience with Cloud (AWS) or Edge/IoT deployment patterns.

• Experience Level:

  • Typically requires experience in a Senior or Mid-level engineering role where you owned significant parts of the stack.
  • Background in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

• Soft Skills:

  • Collaboration: Ability to communicate technical constraints to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Mentorship: Willingness to guide other engineers on best practices.
  • Autonomy: Comfortable working in an environment where you define your own path to the solution.

• Nice-to-Have Skills:

  • Edge Stack: Experience with NVIDIA Jetson, DeepStream, or TensorRT.
  • Video Tech: Knowledge of GStreamer, ffmpeg, or video codecs.
  • Tools: Familiarity with Airflow, Kafka, Postgres, or specific fleet management tools.
  • Passion: An interest in sports analytics is a bonus, but we are happy to teach you the domain.

7. Common Interview Questions

The following questions are representative of what you might face. They are designed to test your ability to apply your knowledge to Hudl's specific context—video, sports, and scale.

MLOps & System Design

• "How would you design a system to collect failure cases (e.g., missed goals) from edge devices to retrain our models?"
• "Describe a CI/CD pipeline you built for a machine learning project. What were the stages, and how did you handle model validation?"
• "We need to deploy a new model to 10,000 devices. Describe your rollout strategy to minimize risk."
• "How do you handle schema changes in a feature store used by multiple models?"

Technical & Coding

• "Write a Python function to parse a stream of video metadata and filter for specific events."
• "How would you optimize a Docker container to minimize its size for deployment to an embedded device?"
• "Explain how you would use Infrastructure-as-Code to provision a scalable training cluster on AWS."

Behavioral & Culture

• "Tell me about a time you had to compromise on a technical decision to meet a deadline. What was the outcome?"
• "Describe a situation where you identified a gap in the infrastructure and took the initiative to fix it without being asked."
• "How do you explain complex ML concepts to a Product Manager or a non-technical stakeholder?"

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How much sports knowledge do I need? None. While a passion for sports is great, it is not a requirement. We hire for engineering excellence first. We have plenty of experts who can teach you the nuances of football metrics or basketball tracking.

Q: What is the balance between research and engineering in this role? This is primarily an engineering role. While you will work closely with researchers and need to understand ML concepts, your output is code, infrastructure, and pipelines, not novel research papers.

Q: Can I work remotely? Yes, Hudl supports remote work options within the UK and Spain for these roles, though living near our London or Barcelona hubs is often preferred for collaboration. We provide the tech you need to work effectively from home.

Q: What makes the "Edge" role different from a standard Backend ML role? The constraints. In the Edge role, you are dealing with limited compute, thermal throttling, and intermittent internet connections. You aren't just scaling up a server; you are optimizing for a specific piece of hardware sitting in a stadium.

Q: What is the company culture like? Hudl is known for its "High Trust" culture. We don't micromanage. You are given autonomy to solve problems your way. We also prioritize work-life harmony, with flexible vacation policies and "timeout" days.

9. Other General Tips

Know the Product: Before your interview, research Hudl Focus and our analysis platforms. Understanding that we deal with video data and automated tracking will give you a huge advantage in system design questions.

Think "User-First": When answering technical questions, always tie your solution back to the user. For example, "I would optimize this inference speed so that the coach gets the clip immediately during halftime."

Prepare for "Ambiguity": Hudl engineers often tackle problems that haven't been solved before in the sports domain. Show that you can break down a vague problem (e.g., "Make the tracking better") into concrete engineering tasks.

Highlight Collaboration: We are the "team behind the team." Use "we" as much as "I" when describing past successes, but be clear about your specific contribution.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Becoming a Machine Learning Engineer at Hudl means joining a team that is redefining how sports are played and analyzed globally. It is a role that demands high technical rigor, a passion for automation, and the ability to build systems that survive the chaos of the real world. Whether you are optimizing neural networks for smart cameras or building the data pipelines for the next generation of football analytics, your work will have a visible impact on millions of athletes.

To prepare, focus heavily on MLOps principles, system design for the edge, and Python craftsmanship. Review your past experiences with CI/CD and deployment, and be ready to tell stories about how you solved complex infrastructure problems. Approach the interview with curiosity and confidence—we are looking for colleagues we can learn from.

The compensation data above reflects the market rate for this position. At Hudl, we value transparency and fairness, so use this as a baseline to understand the potential value of the offer, keeping in mind that total compensation also includes benefits and potential equity components.

For more community insights and specific interview questions, visit Dataford. Good luck—we look forward to seeing what you can build.