Machine Learning Engineer, Buyer Growth

Whatnot; New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco (NY, CA, WA, CA); Remote; USD 235,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

Whatnot, a leading livestream shopping platform, seeks a Machine Learning Engineer for their Buyer Growth Team. This role involves developing ML models to enhance user acquisition and retention, while leading important growth initiatives. Ideal candidates should possess strong ML skills and have experience in e-commerce or social products.

Benefits

Health Insurance (Medical, Dental, Vision)

Work From Home Support

Retirement plans (401k with employer match)

Dogfooding allowance

Parental Leave

Qualifications

• 8+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML systems.
• Deep expertise in personalization and ranking.
• Success in leading end-to-end ML projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and deployment of ML models for user growth.
• Own the full model lifecycle including data collection and evaluation.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to drive growth.

Skills

Machine Learning

Personalization

User Modeling

Python

SQL

ML Frameworks

Job description

Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!

Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe for buying, selling, and discovering the things you love. We’re redefining e-commerce by blending community, shopping, and entertainment into a community just for you. As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values. With hubs in the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, and Germany, we’re building the future of online marketplaces—together.

From fashion, beauty, and electronics to collectibles like trading cards, comic books, and even live plants, our live auctions have something for everyone.

And we’re just getting started! As one of the fastest-growing marketplaces, we’re looking for bold, forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs, and join us as we turn passion into business and bring people together through commerce.

Role: Machine Learning Engineer - Buyer Growth Team

The Buyer Growth team is responsible for driving top-of-funnel growth and first-time buyer success. We are seeking a Machine Learning Engineer to accelerate buyer growth through intelligent, data-driven experiences. As the first ML engineer, you’ll build and own ML models for personalization in onboarding and user targeting across our acquisition and engagement channels. This high-impact role directly influences our buyer base growth and first-time user conversion. Your responsibilities include:

1. Leading the design, development, and deployment of ML models that enhance user acquisition, activation, and retention (e.g., ranking models, targeting systems, uplift modeling).
2. Owning the full model lifecycle, from data collection and feature engineering to training, evaluation, deployment, and online experimentation.
3. Identifying and prioritizing high-impact opportunities for machine learning to unlock growth, collaborating with product, engineering, data, and marketing teams.
4. Driving technical excellence and establishing ML best practices within the Buyer Growth team.

Location: US-Based

Team members in this role should be within commuting distance of our hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, or New York.

We value a low ego, growth mindset, action-oriented, and high-impact attitude. Curious if you thrive at Whatnot? We believe these qualities go a long way here.

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML systems at scale.
• Proven success leading end-to-end ML projects that deliver measurable business results.
• Deep expertise in personalization, ranking, or user modeling; strong intuition about user behavior in consumer products.
• Advanced proficiency in Python, SQL, and ML frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, XGBoost.
• Strong communication and leadership skills; ability to influence product roadmap and align cross-functional teams.
• Preferred:
• Experience with ML applications in e-commerce or social products.
• Experience in growth domains such as user segmentation, retention modeling, large-scale recommendation systems, notification ranking.

Compensation:

Full-time US-based applicants: $235,000 to $270,000 per year + benefits + equity. Final salary depends on experience, skills, and level. This range covers base salary only; benefits and equity are additional.

Benefits:

• Health insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work-from-home support:
• Home office setup allowance
• Monthly allowance for cellphone and internet
• Retirement: 401(k) with employer match up to 4% in the US; pension plans internationally
• Monthly allowance for product testing (dogfooding): All Whatnot employees are encouraged to use our platform as buyers and sellers to deepen understanding and improve user experience.
• Parental leave: 16 weeks paid parental leave plus a one-month gradual return to work. Leave allowances run concurrently with country-specific leave requirements.

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability, or any other protected characteristic. We believe diverse skills and experiences enhance our work and culture.

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