distillation jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-28, distillation appears in 271 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Machine Learning Engineer has the most postings mentioning distillation, with demand down 18% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-28
Which roles want distillation?
Upload your resume and Skillenai will show which roles your distillation experience fits, which skills you already cover, and what is missing.
Prepare to discuss distillation in your interview
We’re building mock interviews informed by job postings and career profiles, to help you explain how you’ve used distillation.
Frequently asked questions about distillation
+Is distillation in demand in 2026?
Yes. distillation appears in 271 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, with demand down 18% vs the prior 4 weeks. Machine Learning Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning distillation (23.2% of all postings mentioning distillation).
+What jobs require distillation?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning distillation are Agent Engineer (14.3% of that role’s postings mention distillation), Generative AI Engineer (9.6% of that role’s postings mention distillation), Applied Machine Learning Engineer (8.3% of that role’s postings mention distillation).
+What skills are commonly paired with distillation?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-28), distillation most often appears alongside PyTorch, Python, Quantization, fine-tuning, machine learning.
+Where is distillation most in demand?
As of 2026-09-28, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring distillation are San Francisco, Mountain View, New York City, London, San Jose, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new distillation content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning distillation alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new distillation content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring distillation — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Roles most likely to require distillation
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Engineer | 3 | 14.3% |
| Generative AI Engineer | 5 | 9.6% |
| Applied Machine Learning Engineer | 2 | 8.3% |
| AI Scientist | 5 | 5.9% |
| Tech Lead Manager | 1 | 4.8% |
| AI Researcher | 5 | 4.3% |
| AI Director | 1 | 4.0% |
| Applied AI Scientist | 1 | 3.6% |
| ML Scientist | 1 | 3.4% |
| Research Engineer | 20 | 3.3% |
Roles with the most distillation postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Machine Learning Engineer | 63 | 23.2% |
| ML Engineer | 24 | 8.9% |
| Research Engineer | 20 | 7.4% |
| Research Scientist | 13 | 4.8% |
| Software Engineer | 11 | 4.1% |
| AI Engineer | 10 | 3.7% |
| AI Researcher | 5 | 1.8% |
| AI Scientist | 5 | 1.8% |
| Applied Scientist | 5 | 1.8% |
| Generative AI Engineer | 5 | 1.8% |
Top metros hiring for distillation
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 30 | 11.1% |
| Mountain View | 14 | 5.2% |
| New York City | 14 | 5.2% |
| London | 11 | 4.1% |
| San Jose | 8 | 3.0% |
| Santa Clara | 7 | 2.6% |
| Seoul | 5 | 1.8% |
| Singapore | 5 | 1.8% |
| Bellevue | 4 | 1.5% |
Skills commonly paired with distillation
Get a daily email digest of new distillation content
Skillenai indexes news articles, blog posts, and research papers that mention distillation. Click below and we'll open a pre-filled daily digest — change the cadence to hourly or weekly if you prefer, then save. Free account required (~30 seconds).
Explore related pages
How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning distillation by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s distillation postings by all distillation postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 9427f7ab75d24033
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-28
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
Skillenai for recruiters →