Local Intent Data Mining Expert

Francisco Partners; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 112,000 - 293,000; Full time

Job summary

NewsBreak is hiring a Senior Applied Scientist/ML Engineer to build systems that understand what local consumers want, turning raw queries and behavior into structured intent. You’ll bring LLMs into production to power local search and recommendations at scale.

The role requires 5+ years in query understanding, semantic search, or NLU, with hands-on experience shipping models serving real users and working with embeddings and interest graphs at consumer-internet scale.

Qualifications

• 5+ years as an Applied Scientist or ML Engineer on query understanding, intent, semantic search, or NLU.
• Production experience shipping models that serve real users.
• Hands-on with embeddings, semantic search, intent classification, taxonomy, or interest-graph construction.
• Experience bringing LLMs into production systems.
• Comfort working at consumer-internet data scale.

Responsibilities

• Build query-understanding, user-intent classification, and semantic-search models for local consumer demand.
• Design and grow intent taxonomies and interest graphs over local categories and merchants.
• Ship LLM-powered features into production for search and recommendations at consumer scale.
• Work with embeddings, retrieval, and NLU to connect messy consumer language to local supply.
• Define metrics and run experiments that tie intent quality to downstream conversion.

Skills

Applied Scientist

ML Engineer

Query understanding

Semantic search

NLU

Embeddings

LLMs in production

Consumer-internet scale

Job description

About NewsBreak

Founded in 2015, NewsBreak is the Content Intelligence platform shaping the future content economy. With over 40 million monthly active users, our flagship platform delivers highly personalized local news and information powered by advanced AI, recommendation systems, and adtech.

Recognized by Fast Company as #32 on the Top Workplaces for Innovators, we're proud to be Great Place to Work® certified and home to a dynamic team of technologists, product innovators, and business leaders who are passionate about solving meaningful challenges at scale.

Together, we reached unicorn status in 2021, and we remain committed to continuing this high-growth trajectory with the right team to fulfill our mission: building the infrastructure layer for content intelligence.

If you're inspired to dream big, innovate fast, and make a difference, we'd love to hear from you! For more information, visit www.newsbreak.com/about

About the role

You will build the systems that understand what local consumers actually want — turning raw queries, behavior, and context into structured intent. This means query understanding, user-intent classification, semantic search, and the intent taxonomies and interest graphs that power discovery across local categories. You will bring LLMs into production, not the lab, to make local search and recommendations genuinely understand consumer intent.

What you'll do

• Build query-understanding, user-intent classification, and semantic-search models for local consumer demand.
• Design and grow intent taxonomies and interest graphs over local categories and merchants.
• Ship LLM-powered features into production for search and recommendations at consumer scale.
• Work with embeddings, retrieval, and NLU to connect messy consumer language to local supply.
• Define metrics and run experiments that tie intent quality to downstream conversion.

What we're looking for

• 5+ years as an Applied Scientist or ML Engineer on query understanding, intent, semantic search, or NLU.
• Production experience shipping models that serve real users — not purely offline or research work.
• Hands-on with embeddings, semantic search, intent classification, taxonomy, or interest-graph construction.
• Experience bringing LLMs into production systems.
• Comfort working at consumer-internet data scale.

Nice to have

• Background at Google Search / Ads quality, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Search/Alexa, or Apple.
• Built a user-intent taxonomy or interest graph at a consumer internet company.
• Consumer-intent or personalization work specifically at a local platform (DoorDash, Instacart).

The US base salary range for this full-time position is listed below. Pay may vary based on a number of factors including job-related skills, level, experience, geographic location and relevant education or training. At NewsBreak, we design our overall rewards package to attract top talents. Depending on the position, the role may also be eligible for discretionary bonus and options. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.

Annual Base Pay Range

$112,000 — $293,000 USD

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