Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking & Retrieval

Data Co Lab X; United States; Remote; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work from US

Job summary

ClickUp is seeking a senior Machine Learning Engineer to own ranking and retrieval systems for its large-scale search platform. You will manage the full ML lifecycle from training to production serving on a multi-tenant environment with permission-aware retrieval.

Join a team that collaborates across infrastructure, AI, and backend groups to ship improvements for billions of documents, leveraging hybrid lexical and vector search, embedding inference, and advanced query understanding, with remote

Qualifications

• 5+ years of ML engineering focused on ranking, retrieval, or IR.
• Experience owning full ML lifecycle: training, deployment, and serving.
• Experience building hybrid lexical + vector retrieval systems.
• Familiarity with OpenSearch/Elasticsearch and scalable pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Train, deploy, and serve ranking models in production.
• Build ranker features, training pipelines, and offline evaluation.
• Design and scale hybrid retrieval (lexical + vector) with HNSW.
• Run embedding inference at large scale and improve query understanding.
• Collaborate with Search Infrastructure, AI, and backend teams.

Skills

Machine Learning Engineering

Information Retrieval

Learning to Rank

NLP Fundamentals

Query Expansion

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/ML

Tools

OpenSearch

Elasticsearch

TypeScript

Job description

ClickUp# Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking & RetrievalReview the role, location requirements, compensation details, and application process before deciding whether this opportunity fits your next career move.Apply for this job View companyRemote from: USASalary: USD 200k–250k / yrDepartment: Data Science & AnalyticsEmployment: Full TimeExperience: Open levelPublished: 25 Oct 2026Apply before: 24 Nov 2026Listing views: 577Application actions: 32Application toolkit## Make your next move.Prepare your resume, explore your fit, and draft a cover letter for this opportunity.AI Summary## The role, at a glance.ClickUp is seeking a senior Machine Learning Engineer to own ranking and retrieval systems for its large-scale search platform. The role covers the complete ML lifecycle, including model training, deployment, serving, feature pipelines, and offline quality evaluation. The engineer will build hybrid lexical and vector retrieval, embedding inference, query-understanding capabilities, and permission-aware multi-tenant search. Success requires deep information-retrieval expertise, production ML experience, and close collaboration with infrastructure, AI, and backend teams.## Role DNAA quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.### Job Complexity5/5EasyHard### Pace & Pressure5/5RelaxedFast-paced### Autonomy Level5/5GuidedFull ownership### Communication Load4/5IndependentCollaborative**AI insight**This is a highly specialized senior ML engineering role involving production ranking, retrieval quality, distributed indexing, and inference at billions-of-documents scale. The engineer is expected to independently own critical search-relevance systems while coordinating across several technical teams.## Salary analysisEstimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.Estimated job median (per year)Market rate**$225,000**US market range (per year)**$190k–$270k**0$297k**AI insight**The employer discloses an annual base compensation range of $200,000–$250,000 USD, with a midpoint of $225,000. Estimated US market compensation for a senior machine learning engineer specializing in large-scale ranking and retrieval is approximately $190,000–$270,000 per year; this is an AI estimate, not verified salary research.## Core skillsSkills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.Machine Learning EngineeringInformation RetrievalLearning to RankSemantic SearchVector SearchHybrid RetrievalEmbedding ModelsNatural Language ProcessingOpenSearchElasticsearchHNSWFeature EngineeringModel DeploymentOffline EvaluationDistributed Systems**Sample interview questions**Opportunity details## About this role.At ClickUp, we’re building the future of work: the first truly converged AI workspace unifying tasks, docs, chat, calendar, and enterprise search, all supercharged by context-driven AI. We are an AI-native company. Every team member is expected to leverage AI daily, and we evaluate AI fluency as part of our hiring process. Join us and help redefine what’s possible. **Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking & Retrieval**ClickUp is seeking an experienced Machine Learning Engineer to join our Search team. You’ll own the ML systems that power search relevance for millions of users and ground our AI in the right context.**Your Impact at ClickUp**You’ll own the full ML lifecycle for ranking and retrieval, from training through deployment and production serving. Our search indexes large-scale, user-generated content across a multi-tenant platform where permissions-aware retrieval is critical. You’ll build the systems that decide what surfaces first.**Core Responsibilities*** Train, deploy, and serve ranking models in production, owning the full ML lifecycle* Build ranker features, training pipelines, and offline evaluation frameworks* Design and scale hybrid retrieval combining lexical and vector search (including HNSW with disk offloading)* Run embedding inference at billions-of-documents scale* Improve query understanding through intent modeling and query expansion* Build permissions-aware retrieval that respects multi-tenant boundaries* Create measurement frameworks to evaluate and improve search quality* Collaborate with Search Infrastructure, AI, and backend teams to integrate ranking improvements across the platform**Technical Requirements*** Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field* 5+ years of ML engineering experience focused on ranking, retrieval, or information retrieval* Proven full ML lifecycle ownership: training, deploying, and serving models in production* Hands-on ranker model training: feature engineering, pipelines, offline evaluation* Experience building hybrid (lexical + vector) retrieval systems* Experience running embedding inference at large scale* Strong query understanding fundamentals: intent modeling, query expansion**Preferred Qualifications*** Permission-aware retrieval and multi-tenancy experience* Indexing large-scale user-generated content (not small or static datasets)* Hands-on experience with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch* Sharding, index management, and real-time ingestion at scale* Background in NLP, semantic search, or agentic retrieval* Experience with TypeScript in backend systems**Join Our Mission**At ClickUp, we’re committed to building the future of productivity software. As our Search Engineer, you’ll play a crucial role in shaping the core functionality of our platform and driving our AI initiatives forward. Join us in our mission to make the world more productive!#LI-REMOTE**Equal Opportunity Employer***ClickUp is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.***Privacy Notice***ClickUp collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws. You can find further details by viewing our* *Global Candidate Privacy Notice.**If you are a Philippine Job Applicant, please also see our* *Philippine Data Privacy Notice* *for further details.***Visa Sponsorship***Please note we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for roles outside of engineering and product at this time. Sponsorship for engineering and product roles is not guaranteed, but is instead based on the business needs for that specific role at that time. Please reach out to the recruiter with any questions.***Fraud Alert***ClickUp Talent Acquisition will only initiate contact via an **@******clickup.com*** *email or through our official careers portal on* *clickup.com**. We will never request fees, payments, or sensitive personal information. Please disregard any offers received outside these channels and report them to [e-mail].***AI Processing Notice***ClickUp may use artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help review and screen candidates’ employment applications against role-related criteria. These tools support, but do not replace, human decision‐making. If you have questions or need an accommodation in the recruitment process, please contact us at [e-mail].*