Staff Machine Learning Data Scientist

CookUnity; Toronto; On-site; CAD 266,000 - 281,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading food-tech company in Toronto is seeking an experienced ML-focused Data Scientist to design and implement recommendation systems, ensuring they deliver personalized meal experiences. The ideal candidate will have over 6 years of experience in data science, proficiency in Python, and the ability to lead collaborative projects. This role offers competitive compensation and substantial benefits, including health insurance and stock options.

Benefits

Health Insurance coverage (Canada Life)

Stock Options Plan granted on Day 1

Eligible for a bi-annual performance bonus

Flexible Paid Time Off

5-year Sabbatical

Paid Family leave

Compassionate Leave

Monthly CookUnity credits

Fitness subsidies

Personalized Spanish coach

Qualifications

• 6+ years in data science, machine learning, or applied statistics.
• Deep experience building recommendation engines and personalization pipelines.
• Hands-on familiarity with A/B testing frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Architect and deliver production-grade recommendation and personalization systems.
• Quantify and optimize business impact through A/B testing and causal inference.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to embed experimentation and feedback.

Skills

Data science

Machine learning

Applied statistics

Recommendation engines

A/B testing frameworks

Python

SQL

Tools

Snowflake

PyTorch

Airflow

MLFlow

ECS

Job description

About CookUnity

Food has lost its soul to modern convenience. And with it, it has lost the power to nourish, inspire, and connect us. So in 2018, CookUnity was founded as the first-of-its-kind platform that connects the world with the source of truly great food: chefs. Today, CookUnity delivers 50 million meals a year from the industry’s best chefs to homes all over the country. Fresh. Ready-to-eat. And crafted with the passion that nourishes body and soul.

Unwilling to stop there, CookUnity is expanding beyond delivery to become an ever-innovating marketplace focused on our singular mission: empower Chefs to nourish the world.

If that mission has you hungry in more ways than one, you’ve found the right job posting.

About the role

We’re looking for an experienced ML-focused Data Scientist to design, build, and productionize personalization and recommendation systems that help every CookUnity customer discover meals they’ll love. You’ll develop user modeling and ranking algorithms, ensure they integrate seamlessly into production, and lead experimentation strategies to measure their real-world impact. This is a hands-on, high-impact role for someone who can blend strong machine learning expertise with strategic thinking, rigorous experimentation, and close collaboration with Product, Engineering, and Business stakeholders.

What You’ll Do

• Architect and deliver production-grade recommendation and personalization systems, from user modeling to ranking algorithms and embeddings.
• Quantify and optimize business impact through A/B testing, experimentation design, causal inference, and lift analyses.
• Translate product and business needs into effective, data-driven solutions that scale.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to embed experimentation and feedback loops into our workflows.
• Mentor and coach the data team on best practices in ML model validation, experimentation, and scalability.

You Might Be a Great Fit If You Have:

• 6+ years in data science, machine learning, or applied statistics.
• Deep experience building recommendation engines, personalization pipelines, ranking/relevance models, search optimization, or embedding-based features.
• Hands-on familiarity with A/B testing frameworks, and skills in experimentation design, causal inference, and measuring incremental impact.
• Strong programming chops in Python and SQL (with bonuses for experience in Snowflake, PyTorch, Airflow, MLFlow, ECS).
• A proven ability to work across disciplines and guide stakeholders—while also owning the technical end-to-end performance of your models.
• Bonus if you’ve worked in marketplaces, subscription services, food-tech, or adjacent domains.

Benefits

• Health Insurance coverage (Canada Life)
• Stock Options Plan granted on Day 1.
• Eligible for a bi-annual performance bonus
• ⛱ Flexible Paid Time Off
• ️5- year Sabbatical: After 5 years with CookUnity, you get a 4-week paid sabbatical
• Paid Family leave.
• Compassionate Leave: 3-5 days each time the need arises
• A generous amount of CookUnity credits to enjoy our amazing meals, added to your account, monthly.
• ♀️Wellness perks: fitness subsidies to build a healthy lifestyle
• Personalized Spanish coach

Compensation

All final pay rates will be determined by candidate's experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Pay Range for this position $190,000 — $200,000 USD.

We look forward to hearing from you

If you’re interested in this role, please submit your application, and if we think you might be a fit, we'll get in touch with you. Thank you for your time!

Equal Opportunity Employer

CookUnity is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are dedicated to creating a community of inclusion and an environment free from discrimination or harassment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, protected veteran status, genetic information, or physical or mental disability.

Candidate Safety Note

We’ve recently seen an increase in recruitment scams across the industry, and we want to make sure you (and your data) stay safe while applying to CookUnity. We also want you to know that we take this seriously — sometimes, as part of our process, we may ask for a brief “proof of humanity” to confirm that we’re connecting with a real person, not an impersonator. Here are a few tips to help you protect yourself and know what to expect from us:

• Apply only through our official channels. All open roles are listed on our official careers page: careers.cookunity.com
• Our recruiters are real people — and easy to verify. You can always find them on LinkedIn with verified profiles. If you’re unsure, feel free to reach out to us on our official LinkedIn Company Page.
• We only communicate through official CookUnity channels. That means emails ending in @cookunity.com and interviews held through official company platforms (Google Meet or Zoom) — never WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS.
• We’ll never ask for payment or personal financial details. If anyone does, please don’t share any information and let us know right away.

If something ever feels off or you’re unsure about a message, we’d much rather you double-check with us. You can always contact us directly through any of our social media channels. We appreciate your interest in joining CookUnity — and we care about keeping your experience (and safety) as genuine as possible.