Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendation & AI Applications

News Break; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision care

401(K) plan with company matching

Paid time off

Commuter benefits

Job summary

A leading content intelligence platform is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer in Mountain View, California. The role involves designing high-throughput recommendation systems and applying AI technology to enhance content discovery and personalization. Candidates should have over 3 years of experience with machine learning production systems and strong coding skills in Python or Java. Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits are offered, along with a chance to work in an innovative environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of industry experience building machine learning or recommendation systems in production.
• Strong understanding of recommendation system fundamentals including ranking and embeddings.
• Experience working with large-scale data and ML systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and improve high-throughput recommendation systems.
• Identify and resolve issues related to data quality and model performance.
• Apply LLMs to recommendation-related problems like content understanding.

Skills

Machine learning

Recommendation systems

Python

Java

Scala

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Tools

Spark

Distributed training

Job description

Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendation & AI Applications

Mountain View, California, United States

About NewsBreak

Founded in 2015, NewsBreak is the Content Intelligence platform shaping the future content economy. With over 40 million monthly active users, our flagship platform delivers highly personalized local news and information powered by advanced AI, recommendation systems, and adtech.

Recognized by Fast Company as #32 on the Top Workplaces for Innovators, we're proud to be Great Place to Work® certified and home to a dynamic team of technologists, product innovators, and business leaders who are passionate about solving meaningful challenges at scale.

Together, we reached unicorn status in 2021, and we remain committed to continuing this high-growth trajectory with the right team to fulfill our mission: building the infrastructure layer for content intelligence.

If you’re inspired to dream big, innovate fast, and make a difference, we’d love to hear from you! For more information, visit www.newsbreak.com/about

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to help evolve our large-scale recommendation systems and apply AI / LLM technologies to real-world production problems. You will work on core feed, retrieval, and ranking systems serving tens of millions of users, while also participating in AI-driven innovation projects that explore new ways to improve content discovery, personalization, and developer productivity. This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy strong individual ownership, hands-on development, and translating ideas into reliable systems.

What You’ll Work On

• Design, build, and iterate on high-throughput, low-latency recommendation systems powering NewsBreak’s core feeds.
• Improve retrieval, ranking, and multi-objective optimization to balance engagement, retention, content quality, and business metrics.
• Identify and resolve issues related to data quality, model drift, and system performance in production.

AI & LLM Applications

• Apply LLMs and foundation models to recommendation-related problems such as content understanding, user intent modeling, and feature generation.
• Prototype quickly, validate with experiments, and push successful ideas into production.

AI-Driven Development

• Embrace AI-assisted development workflows, including LLM-powered coding, debugging, and analysis.
• Apply AI across feature ideation, prototyping, and experiment analysis.
• Contribute to 0–1 AI-powered projects, helping take ideas from early exploration to MVP and production.

What We’re Looking For

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of industry experience building machine learning or recommendation systems in production.
• Strong understanding of recommendation system fundamentals (ranking, embeddings, user/item modeling, experimentation).
• Strong coding skills with Python / Java / Scala, and experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Experience working with large-scale data and ML systems (e.g., Spark, distributed training, real-time inference).
• Ability to own features end-to-end and deliver measurable business impact.

Bonus / Plus Qualifications

• Production experience applying AI or LLMs to recommendation systems.
• Experience contributing to 0 → 1 AI or ML-driven products.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and workflows.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision care for you and your family (100% coverage for employee)
• Top-tier 401(K) plan with company matching
• Paid time off and paid holidays
• FSA, HSA and commuter benefits programs
• Team activity budget

The US base salary range for this full-time position is listed below. Pay may vary based on a number of factors including job-related skills, level, experience, geographic location and relevant education or training. At NewsBreak, we design our overall rewards package to attract top talents. Depending on the position, the role may also be eligible for discretionary bonus and options. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.

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As set forth in NewsBreak’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.