Director, Machine Learning Engineer, Content

SNAP, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 334,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid parental leave

Comprehensive medical coverage

Mental health support programs

Equity RSUs

Job summary

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

You will set multi‑year ML strategy for recommendation, content understanding, production reliability, and experimentation, while developing managers and aligning model investments with business outcomes. You will oversee the Content ML team across Seattle, LA, SF, Palo Alto, and NYC, driving the roadmap and collaborating with executives to deliver high‑quality experiences for over 450 million daily

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or an equivalent field.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience post-Bachelor’s or 9+ with a Master’s or 6+ with a PhD.
• 5+ years of experience leading a large team and driving efficiency.
• Experience with ML, AI, and ranking systems.

Responsibilities

• Support teams solving technical challenges and build world‑class Snapchat experiences.
• Oversee daily operations of Content ML teams across multiple offices.
• Develop organization‑level goals and an engineering roadmap.
• Collaborate with executives, product, and finance to deliver high‑quality products.
• Influence architecture and scalable, cost‑effective engineering solutions.
• Build and scale high‑performing teams while mentoring managers and directors.
• Iterate quickly while maintaining operational excellence.

Skills

Leadership

ML & DL

Ranking systems

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Master's degree or PhD in technical field (optional)

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.

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 will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, where applicable).

Our Benefits:

Snap Inc. is its own community, so we’ve got your back! We do our best to make sure you and your loved ones have everything you need to be happy and healthy, on your own terms. Our benefits are built around your needs and include paid parental leave, comprehensive medical coverage, emotional and mental health support programs, and compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long‑term success!

Compensation

In the United States, work locations are assigned a pay zone which determines the salary range for the position. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job‑related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. The starting pay may be negotiable within the salary range for the position. These pay zones may be modified in the future.

• Zone A (CA, WA, NYC): The base salary range for this position is $334,000-$500,000 annually.
• Zone B: The base salary range for this position is $317,000-$475,000 annually.
• Zone C: The base salary range for this position is $284,000-$425,000 annually.
• This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs.