Principal ML Engineer, Recommendation Systems

Vumedi; Oakland (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Vumedi is seeking a Principal AI/ML Engineer to lead the architecture and development of its AI-powered discovery platform. You’ll shape how physicians access educational content through intelligent retrieval, semantic search, and personalized recommendations, working with our CTO to define technical strategy and production systems that scale globally.

This is a rare opportunity to apply modern AI techniques to improve patient care at scale and influence the platform’s AI roadmap across the

Qualifications

• Production experience building LLM-powered applications.
• Experience with retrieval pipelines, embeddings, and vector databases.
• Knowledge of modern AI frameworks and orchestration tools.
• Experience with distributed systems at meaningful scale.
• Familiarity with cloud-native architectures.
• Proficiency in Python and modern backend development.
• Ability to prototype, evaluate, and iteratively improve models.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction behind Vumedi’s next-generation discovery platform.
• Design intelligent recommendation systems that personalize educational content.
• Build LLM-powered discovery experiences that understand clinical intent.
• Develop semantic search, retrieval, ranking, and pipelines using embeddings and vector search.
• Design production-grade knowledge graph RAG systems.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and infrastructure.
• Build scalable inference and retrieval services for physicians worldwide.
• Collaborate with Product, Data Science, and Engineering to iterate and launch new AI capabilities.
• Define long-term AI architecture for the platform.

Skills

LLM-powered applications

Retrieval pipelines

Vector databases

Modern AI frameworks

Distributed systems

Cloud-native architectures

Python development

Experimentation & evaluation

Job description

About Vumedi

Vumedi is the world's largest video education platform for physicians, trusted by more than 250,000 doctors worldwide to stay current on the latest clinical research, surgical techniques, and medical innovations.

Every day, physicians come to Vumedi looking for the right knowledge at the right moment, whether they're preparing for a procedure, researching a rare condition, or learning from experts across thousands of specialties.

We're building the next generation of that experience.

Our vision is to transform how doctors discover medical knowledge by combining large language models, retrieval systems, semantic search, and personalized recommendations into an intelligent learning platform unlike anything else in healthcare.

If you've built recommendation systems, search platforms, ranking algorithms, or AI-powered discovery experiences, we'd love to talk.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a Principal AI/ML Engineer to lead the architecture and development of Vumedi’s AI-powered discovery platform.

You’ll help define how hundreds of thousands of physicians discover knowledge through intelligent retrieval, semantic search, personalized recommendations, and LLM-powered experiences. Working directly with our CTO, you’ll have significant influence over both technical strategy and implementation: from evaluating emerging AI technologies to designing production systems that deliver highly relevant educational content at scale.

This is a rare opportunity to apply modern AI techniques to a mission that directly improves patient care around the world.

What You’ll Build

You’ll own the technical direction behind Vumedi’s next-generation discovery platform, including:

• Designing intelligent recommendation systems that personalize educational content for physicians.
• Building LLM-powered discovery experiences that understand clinical intent and not just keywords.
• Developing semantic search, retrieval, ranking, and recommendation pipelines using embeddings, vector search, and modern retrieval architectures.
• Designing production-grade knowledge graph RAG systems that combine medical knowledge with generative AI.
• Evaluating and implementing emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and infrastructure as the ecosystem rapidly evolves.
• Building scalable inference and retrieval services capable of serving physicians around the world.
• Partnering closely with Product, Data Science, and Engineering to rapidly prototype, iterate, and launch new AI capabilities.
• Defining the long‑term technical architecture for AI across the Vumedi platform.

This is a Principal-level architecture role, and we’re looking for someone who enjoys building. You’ll move comfortably between whiteboard discussions, architectural design, experimentation, and production code.

What We’re Looking For

We’re less interested in checking every technology box than finding someone who has built intelligent discovery systems at scale.

Ideal candidates have experience building one or more of the following:

• Recommendation systems
• Search relevance and ranking
• Semantic search
• Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Vector search and embeddings
• Knowledge retrieval systems
• Personalized content discovery
• AI‑powered user experiences

You may have worked on products involving:

• Content recommendations
• Marketplace ranking
• Search infrastructure
• Feed ranking
• Personalized discovery
• Knowledge graphs
• Enterprise search
• AI assistants

Technical Experience

We’re excited by candidates who have experience with many of the following:

• Production experience building LLM‑powered applications
• Retrieval pipelines, embeddings, and vector databases
• Modern AI frameworks and orchestration tools
• Distributed systems operating at meaningful scale
• Cloud‑native architectures
• Python and modern backend development
• Experimentation, evaluation, and iterative model improvement

You don’t need experience with every technology we use today. We care far more about your ability to solve difficult discovery and AI problems than familiarity with a specific framework.

Why This Role Is Different

Many companies are adding AI features. We’re rethinking how physicians discover knowledge.

Medical education presents one of the most challenging retrieval problems in AI:

• Massive amounts of highly specialized content
• Complex user intent
• Clinical context
• Constantly evolving medical knowledge
• High expectations for relevance and trust

You’ll help define how AI can responsibly connect physicians with the information they need to improve patient care.

Why Work at Vumedi

• Work on problems that matter: Your work helps physicians learn new procedures, adopt new treatments, and ultimately improve outcomes for patients worldwide.
• Build something from the ground up: You’ll shape the future of AI discovery at Vumedi rather than optimizing a small piece of an already mature platform.
• Work directly with technical leadership: Partner closely with our CTO and engineering leaders on long‑term architecture and product strategy.
• Own meaningful technical decisions: From retrieval architecture to recommendation systems to AI infrastructure, you’ll influence how the platform evolves for years to come.
• Join a collaborative engineering culture: Work alongside engineers, product leaders, and data experts across our Oakland headquarters and engineering office in Zagreb, Croatia.

This is a hybrid role, working 3 days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) in our Oakland office.

Learn more about Vumedi.