Director, Machine Learning Engineer, Content

Snap; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 450,000; Full time

Job summary

Snap Inc. is seeking a Director of ML to lead the Content Machine Learning Engineering team.

This executive role sets multi-year ML strategy for recommendation and content understanding, drives production reliability, and mentors senior leaders across multiple offices including Palo Alto, Seattle, LA, SF, and New York. You will partner with executives across Finance, Product, and Engineering to deliver high-impact ML solutions, influence architecture, and scale teams to meet ambitious business

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience; 5+ years leading large teams at scale.
• Experience with ML, AI, and ranking systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Content Machine Learning Engineering organization.
• Set multi-year ML strategy for recommendation, content understanding, and production reliability.
• Collaborate with executives, product, and finance to align investments with business outcomes.
• Oversee multiple offices and ensure scalable, cost-effective engineering solutions.

Skills

Leadership

ML/AI

Ranking systems

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related field

Advanced degree preferred (MS/PhD)

Tools

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

Snap Inc is a technology company. We believe the camera presents the greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Snap contributes to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

The Company operates Snapchat , a visual messaging app that enhances your relationships with friends, family, and the world, and Specs Inc. , a wholly-owned subsidiary dedicated to making computing more human, in addition to Bitmoji , Saturn, and other digital services.

The Content Machine Learning Engineering organization is responsible for building all of the systems responsible for personalized candidate retrieval and ranking as well as content understanding, quality, freshness, and relevance for Stories and Spotlight.

The team focuses on enhancing user experience, driving innovation across Spotlight, supporting content creators, and making content creation effortless. Our team tackles multi-modal content understanding, using advanced graph representation learning and content ranking to surface the best experiences for our users. We optimize machine learning models through human review and leverage state-of-the-art personalization techniques, placing us at the forefront of short form video content innovation.

We're looking for a Director of ML to lead our Content Machine Learning Engineering team. This role is responsible for setting multi-year ML strategy for recommendation/ranking, content understanding, production reliability, and experimentation, as well as managing and developing managers and connecting model investments to business outcomes.

What you'll do:

• Support our teams solving interesting technical challenges, building world-class experiences in Snapchat and maintaining software and a platform used by over 450 million people every day
• Oversee day to day operations of the Content ML teams across multiple offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York
• Develop organizational-level goals and drive the technical and organizational roadmap for the engineering team
• Collaborate with Executives, Finance, Product, and Engineering teams to deliver the highest quality for our product
• Influence key decisions on architecture and implementation of scalable, reliable, and cost-effective engineering solutions
• Build and scale high-performing teams of software engineers, machine learning engineers, and technical leaders, while mentoring and developing engineering managers, directors, and senior independent contributors to achieve excellence and impact
• Iterate quickly without compromising quality and raise the bar on operational excellence.

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities:

• Ability to partner with cross-functional executives and management across a geographically distributed organization
• Demonstrated experience leading and developing engineers with diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives.
• Strong understanding of machine learning, deep learning approaches, and algorithms

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in a relevant technical field such as computer science or equivalent years of practical work experience
• 10+ years of software engineering experience post-Bachelor's; or a Master's degree in a technical field + 9+ years of post-grad software development experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 6+ years of post-grad software development experience
• 5+ years of experience leading a large team at scale and managing engineering with an eye to driving efficiency
• Experience working with ML, AI, and ranking systems.

Preferred qualifications:

• Track record of delivery in rapidly changing, highly collaborative, multi-site, multi-stakeholder environments
• Experience with Machine Learning and Generative Recommendations
• Experience with high-scale ranking and recommendation systems

"Default Together" Policy at Snap:

At Snap Inc. we believe that being together in person helps us build our culture faster, reinforce our values, and serve our community, customers and partners better through dynamic collaboration. To reflect this, we practice a "default together" approach and expect our team members to work in an office 4+ days per week.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

At Snap, we believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together will enable us to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. Snap is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. EOE, including disability/vets.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and