Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Advertiser Intelligence

Unity Technologies; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 159,100 - 238,700; Full time

Job summary

Unity Technologies seeks a Senior ML Engineer for the Advertiser Growth team. You will design core optimization algorithms governing bids, budgets, and targeting in real time to maximize advertiser outcomes.

We expect leadership in multi‑objective optimization and agentic automation, bridging quantitative methods with large‑scale engineering to deliver measurable business impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in machine learning, data science, or applied research in ad tech or large-scale optimization.
• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Operations Research, Economics, or equivalent.
• Experience designing algorithms that optimize competing goals and deploying ML at scale.
• Strong Python or Scala programming skills; experience with Spark, Snowflake, or BigQuery.
• Proven track record shipping ML systems for high-volume, real-time data and measurable impact.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship multi-objective optimization algorithms for advertiser goals (installs, ROAS, retention, spend efficiency).
• Develop exploration–exploitation strategies (bandits, RL) balancing short- and long-term value.
• Measure long-term impact of model and product changes with surrogate metrics.
• Define metrics frameworks that connect model improvements to outcomes and business results.
• Build LLM-based agent systems for diagnostics, recommendations, or workflow automation; mentor engineers.

Skills

Machine learning

Ad tech

Optimization

Python

Scala

Spark

Leadership

Education

MS or PhD in quantitative field

Tools

Spark

Snowflake

BigQuery

Job description

The opportunity

Unity's Advertiser Growth team leverages artificial intelligence and statistical optimization to maximize returns and reduce effort for advertisers running campaigns on the Unity ad network. Our ads reach billions of devices, and every improvement we ship directly moves outcomes for thousands of advertisers worldwide.

We are looking for a senior Machine Learning Engineer to lead the design of the optimization algorithms at the heart of this mission. In this role, you will be a technical authority on how we automate campaign optimization: how bids, budgets, and targeting decisions are made to serve each advertiser's goals with minimal manual effort. You will bridge advanced quantitative methodology and large‑scale engineering, working where multi‑objective optimization, exploration–exploitation trade‑offs, long‑term value measurement, and LLM‑powered agentic systems meet real‑time production systems.

What you'll be doing

• Multi‑objective campaign optimization: Design and ship algorithms that optimize across a variety of advertiser goals — installs, ROAS, retention, and spend efficiency — under real‑world budget and marketplace constraints.
• Exploration–exploitation strategy: Design strategies (e.g., bandits, reinforcement learning) that balance short‑term performance against long‑term value, so campaigns learn efficiently without sacrificing advertiser returns.
• Long‑term impact measurement: Develop efficient methodologies to measure the long‑term impact of model and product changes, including surrogate metrics that give short‑term signals for long‑term advertiser and user value.
• Metrics frameworks for launch decisions: Define the metrics frameworks that guide what we ship — clear, trustworthy criteria that connect model improvements to advertiser outcomes and business results.
• Agentic automation for advertisers: Build LLM agent systems that automate campaign diagnostics and setup recommendations — agents that analyze campaign performance, identify root causes and recommend or apply configuration changes, so advertisers state their goals and trust the system to deliver.
• Cross‑functional technical leadership: Serve as a lead subject matter expert for ML, Product, and Engineering partners, ensuring quantitative rigor from model design through live production auctions.

What we're looking for

• 5+ years in machine learning, data science, or applied research, ideally within ad tech, marketplaces, or other large‑scale optimization domains.
• An MS or PhD in a quantitative field (Computer Science, Statistics, Operations Research, Economics, or equivalent).
• Quantitative depth: The skills to design algorithms that optimize among competing goals, design exploration–exploitation strategies balancing short‑term and long‑term value, build efficient methodologies for measuring long‑term impact, and define metrics frameworks that guide launch decisions.
• Agentic system experience: Hands‑on experience building LLM‑based agentic systems — tool use, orchestration, retrieval over domain data, and evaluation of agent quality — ideally applied to diagnostics, recommendations, or workflow automation.
• Technical proficiency: Strong programming skills in Python or Scala, and experience with large‑scale data processing frameworks such as Spark, Snowflake, or BigQuery.
• Production track record: A history of shipping ML systems that operate on high‑volume, real‑time data and delivering measurable business impact.
• Strategic leadership: Ability to translate complex quantitative concepts into clear product roadmaps and mentor engineers on modeling and optimization rigor.

You might also have

• Prior experience with dynamic ads or creative optimization — e.g., dynamic creative assembly, creative ranking and selection, or generative creative pipelines.
• Hands‑on experience with bidding, pricing, pacing, or auction systems in digital advertising.
• Familiarity with long‑term value (LTV) prediction and surrogate metric design in mobile gaming or digital advertising.
• Experience with reinforcement learning or contextual bandits in production.
• Experience fine‑tuning or evaluating LLMs, or building multi‑agent orchestration frameworks.

Additional information

Relocation support is not available for this position.

Annual Gross Pay: USD $159,100 - $238,700. This range reflects the anticipated base salary for this position. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for equity awards and participation in our company incentive plans (such as annual discretionary bonuses or sales commissions). The final offer amount will depend on several factors, including geographic location and the candidate’s relevant experience, professional background, and skill set.

Benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well‑being and work‑life balance. Please note that benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status. Benefits include comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance; commute subsidy; employee stock ownership; competitive retirement/pension plans; generous vacation and personal days; support for new parents through leave and family‑care programs; office food snacks; mental health and wellbeing programs and support; employee resource groups; global employee assistance program; training and development programs; and volunteering and donation matching program.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Unity is a proud equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment and celebrate our employees across age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. Our differences are strengths that enable us to support the growing and evolving needs of our customers, partners, and collaborators.

This position requires the incumbent to have a sufficient knowledge of English to have professional verbal and written exchanges in this language since the performance of the duties related to this position requires frequent and regular communication with colleagues and partners located worldwide and whose common language is English.