Local Intent Data Mining Specialist

NewsBreak; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

NewsBreak is seeking an experienced ML Engineer in Mountain View, California, focused on developing systems that understand local consumer intent. You will engage in crafting models for query understanding and semantic search, enhancing the recommendation features powered by LLMs.

The ideal candidate has substantial experience (5+ years) in machine learning, particularly with production-grade models, embeddings, and intent classification. Join a dynamic team at a unicorn-status organization dedicated to innovating local news delivery.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as an Applied Scientist or ML Engineer.
• Production experience shipping models for real users.
• Hands-on experience with embeddings and semantic search.

Responsibilities

• Build models for query understanding and user intent.
• Design and construct interest graphs for local categories.
• Integrate LLMs into consumer scale search features.
• Define metrics and run experiments for intent quality.

Skills

Query understanding

Intent classification

Semantic search

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

Tools

LLMs

Embeddings

Data scale solutions

Job description

Mountain View, California, United States

About NewsBreak

Founded in 2015, NewsBreak is a Content Intelligence platform that delivers highly personalized local news powered by AI, recommendation systems, and adtech. With over 40 million monthly active users, the company has reached unicorn status and is a Great Place to Work® certified organization.

About the role

You will build systems that understand what local consumers actually want—turning raw queries, behavior, and context into structured intent. This includes query understanding, user‑intent classification, semantic search, and intent taxonomies and interest graphs that power discovery across local categories. You will bring LLMs into production 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.
• Hands‑on experience 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 search or ads quality teams at Google, 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 at a local platform such as DoorDash or Instacart.

As set forth in NewsBreak’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.