Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Zillow Group; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Zillow Group seeks a talented individual to join its Munich-based team focused on generative modeling and computer vision. In this remote role, you will lead the productionalization of models, manage datasets, and collaborate with experts in the field to innovate AI solutions that enhance user experiences in real estate. Your contributions will leverage cutting-edge technology in a dynamic environment, supported by a commitment to equity and professional development.

Benefits

Equity awards

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage

Paid time off

Parental leave

Family benefits

Retirement contributions

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in ML optimization and software engineering.
• Proficient in Python and PyTorch.
• Experience in large ML model optimization & compilation.

Responsibilities

• Owning the transition from research to production-ready models.
• Managing and preparing datasets for model training.
• Supporting scientists in large-scale training and data processing projects.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Software engineering principles

Computer vision

Generative modeling

Multi-node training

Data processing

AWS

Containerization

High-performance parallelization

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

About the team We’re a specialized, Munich-based team focused on applied generative modeling and 3D computer vision. While we began as an independent startup, we joined Zillow in October 2024—combining the agility and ownership of a startup environment with the stability, resources, and long-term vision of an established company. This blend gives our team the freedom to innovate with the confidence that comes from being part of a big and diverse organization.

Our diverse expertise combines academic excellence with real-world impact; the combination of access to internet-scale real estate data of diverse modalities, expertise in both generative and classical computer vision methods, unique access to consumers, and large-scale compute resources makes our position exceptionally unique. We’re excited to build upon this foundation—and we hope you’ll join us in pushing the boundaries of AI at Zillow! About the role

Our team is R&D-heavy and staffed with scientists who have publications in top-tier academic journals. This gives you incredible leverage on your ML and engineering skills, as you’ll collaborate closely with these experts to bring their methods to life at an unprecedented scale of compute, data, and exposure. In this role you will be contributing to Zillow’s mission by working on the following topics:

• Productionalization: Owning the transition from research code to production-ready and optimized models. Establishing CI/CD pipelines that allow scientists to deploy models in short iteration cycles. Innovating upon our existing monitoring systems that make our services reliable and give scientists insight into the performance of their models in production.

• Data: Good data is key to many SOTA ML methods. You will own our team’s datasets, understand datasets from other teams, and collaborate with scientists and other teams to prepare them for model training.

• Training & Experimentation: Owning projects and supporting scientists in running large-scale training and data processing by collaborating with them on specific projects, establishing generalized best practices, and sharing expertise around performance and software engineering principles, while leveraging AI coding and productivity tools.

• Modeling: Staying on top of cutting-edge research (for example on platforms like Arxiv, X, and Papers With Code) and modifying its methods for our use cases in innovative ways to enable new product experiences or improve existing ones.

• Dev & MLOps: Establishing best practices around code quality, testing, and ownership that allow us to move fast without compromising reliability (and sleep). Participating in our existing on-call rotation.

• Leadership & Advocacy: influencing others through the solutions you build, the knowledge you share, and the ideas you propagate within your team, and across other teams which might spark new implementations, research, or products!

The role offers a lot of ownership over some of the most business-impactful topics of our ML R&D cycle but also leaves freedom for professional development into Science or Software Engineering topics by building new product experiences and collaborating with teams across topics and disciplines.

This role has been categorized as a Remote position. “Remote” employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions. In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Who you are

Hard Skills

• Proficiency with Python and PyTorch

• Experience in large ML model optimization & compilation

• Deep understanding of software engineering principles for teams of up to 10 people

• Experience in computer vision and generative modeling

• Expertise with multi-node training (16xH100 and up)

• Familiarity with petabyte-scale data processing (e.g., WebDataset) and data engineering on vision data

• Experience with AWS for large-scale machine learning tasks

• A solid understanding and practical experience of containerization and high-performance parallelization on Unix systems

• Track record of building and maintaining auto-scalable inference systems serving >10,000 H100 GPU hours (or >$50k of inference compute) per month

Preferable Experience

• Familiarity with managed “neo-cloud” platforms (e.g., Modal, fal.ai, RunPod)

• Leading CI/CD and DevOps for ML codebases with 3+ contributors

• Hands-on experience with video/image generative diffusion models and vision-language model architectures

• Experience creating evaluation methodologies (“evals”) for generative tasks

• Experience building AI-powered applications end-to-end

• Effectively managing compute budgets of >$50k per month

• Previously held software engineering roles

Interests

• Enthusiasm for putting significant FLOPs behind research ideas to craft groundbreaking genAI experiences for millions of users

• Passion for generative models and computer vision,

• Collaborating with scientists and software development engineers to establish robust software engineering practices.

• A love for order and doing things in a correct and scalable way, with the wisdom and flexibility to recognize where moving fast is more important.

• Staying on the cutting edge of SOTA methods in generative modeling and 3D computer vision alongside our scientists.
  

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent industry experience in Computer Science

• 3+ years of experience in the aforementioned topics or exceptional progress in less time

Get to know us

Zillow is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people.

As the most-visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow and its affiliates help movers find and win their home through digital solutions, first class partners, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences. Millions of people visit Zillow Group sites every month to start their home search, and now they can rely on Zillow to help make it easier to move. The work we do helps people get home and no matter what job you're in, you will play a critical role in making home a reality for more and more people.

Our efforts to streamline the real estate transaction are supported by a deep-rooted culture of innovation, our passion to redefine the employee experience, a fundamental commitment to Equity and Belonging, and world-class benefits . These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverages as well as parental leave, family benefits, retirement contributions, and paid time off. We’re also setting the standard for work experiences of the future, where our employees are supported in doing their best work and living a flexible, well-balanced life. But don’t just take our word for it. Read recent reviews on Glassdoor and recent recognition from multiple organizations, including: the 100 Best Companies to Work For, Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equity Index, and TIME 100 Most Influential Companies list.

Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact your recruiter directly.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable state and local law.

Applicants who receive job offers from Zillow Group will be asked to sign a Proprietary Rights Agreement which includes confidentiality, intellectual property assignment, customer and employee non-solicitation, and non-competition provisions. If you are contacted for a role at Zillow Group and wish to review a copy of the Proprietary Rights Agreement prior to receiving an offer, you may request a copy from your Recruiter.