Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer

PassFort; New York (NY); On-site; USD 280,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401k program

Employee Equity Plan

Professional development allowance

Wellness benefit

35 days PTO annually

16 weeks parental leave

Free lunches

Job summary

SoundCloud is seeking a Senior ML Engineering Leader to drive the technical strategy for our ML systems, including recommendation and personalization. You will guide model development, deployment, and scaling across a global user base.

You will mentor ML engineers and scientists, partner with the CTO on an “ML Everywhere” initiative, and stay ahead of industry trends to apply innovations. Salary ranges reflect market norms for the US.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of ML engineering experience.
• 3+ years in search or recommendations at internet-scale.
• Experience defining technical strategy for large-scale ML systems.
• Experience leading and scaling ML teams.
• Strong data-driven ML delivery on cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical strategy and execution for SoundCloud’s ML systems (e.g., recommendation, ranking, personalization).
• Drive exploration of advanced modeling techniques (DL, LLMs, multi-modal embeddings, transformers).
• Define ML infrastructure direction: architecture, feature stores, pipelines, serving, versioning to accelerate AI features to market.
• Own short- and long-term ML objectives and ensure measurable impact.
• Mentor ML Engineers and Scientists across SoundCloud.
• Partner with CTO on an “ML Everywhere” strategy across Creator and Fan surfaces.
• Stay current with ML industry trends and apply innovations at SoundCloud.
• Leverage agentic workflows and AI-assisted engineering to boost speed.

Skills

ML engineering

Leadership

Model deployment

Data pipelines

Cross-functional leadership

Cloud platforms

Communication

Research & innovation

Recommendation/RS systems

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Big data processing

Job description

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the technical strategy and execution for SoundCloud’s ML systems (e.g., recommendation, ranking, personalization), including model development, deployment, and scaling.
• Lead the exploration of advanced modeling techniques including Deep Neural Networks, LLMs, large recommender systems, multi-modal embeddings and transformer-based architectures to create unique and impactful listening experiences.
• Define and drive the overall technical direction for ML in SoundCloud including model architecture, feature engineering, training and serving infrastructure at scale, feature stores, pipeline orchestration, and model registry and versioning all aimed at accelerating our ability to bring ML-powered features to market.
• Own short- and long-term objectives, ensuring ML investments deliver measurable user and business impact.
• Lead, mentor, and grow ML Engineers and Scientists across SoundCloud.
• Be a strategic partner to the CTO in bringing an “ML Everywhere” strategy to all surfaces in the product (both Creator and Fan), and helping to lead the charge on AI-native engineering.
• Stay current with industry trends and advancements in machine learning, identifying opportunities to apply them at SoundCloud.
• Lead the leveraging of agentic workflows and AI-assisted engineering as a force multiplier to work at 10x the speed of traditional methods.

Experience and Background:

• 10+ years of experience in ML engineering, plus 3+ years in search or recommendations in an internet scale service with the reach of tens of millions of daily active users. Experience in a music streaming environment is a bonus.
• Proven track record of defining technical strategy and driving execution for large-scale ML systems, particularly in recommendation, personalization, or search.
• Experience setting technical roadmaps, influencing cross-functional priorities, and balancing business, product, and engineering trade-offs at an organizational level.
• Experience leading and scaling teams of ML Engineers and Scientists, including hiring, mentoring, and developing high-performing talent.
• Deep expertise in delivering data-driven products and ML solutions at scale on cloud-based platforms, with strong understanding of infrastructure and lifecycle management.
• Hands‑on familiarity with modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) and data processing pipelines, combined with strong software engineering foundations.
• Thought leadership in ML and data science, with a track record of driving technical innovation and applying emerging industry trends.
• Exceptional communication, strategic influence, and cross-functional leadership skills across senior stakeholders and global teams.

The salary range for this role is $280,000 - $325,000 annually. The final salary offered will be determined based on relative experience, skills, internal equity, and location. We also offer a generous total rewards program – read more about additional benefits and perks below!

Benefits:

• Comprehensive health benefits including medical, dental, and vision plans, as well as mental health resources.
• Robust 401k program.
• Employee Equity Plan.
• Generous professional development allowance.
• Creativity and Wellness benefit – e.g., gym membership, photography course or book.
• Flexible vacation and public holiday policy where you can take up to 35 days of PTO annually.
• 16 paid weeks for all parents (birthing and non-birthing), regardless of gender, to welcome newborns, adopted and foster children.
• Various snacks, goodies, and two free lunches weekly when at the office.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at SoundCloud

SoundCloud is for everyone. Diversity and open expression are fundamental to our organization; they help us lead what’s next in music by understanding and empowering our creators and fans, no matter their identity. We acknowledge the challenges in the music industry, and strive to influence an inclusive culture where everyone can contribute respectfully and thrive, especially the historically marginalized communities that many of our creators, fans and SoundClouders identify with. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment at SoundCloud for everyone, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, migration background, national origin, age, disability status, or caregiver status.

At SoundCloud you can find your community or elevate your allyship by joining a Diversity Resource Group. Diversity Resource Groups are employee‑organized groups focused on supporting and promoting the interests of a particular underrepresented community in order to build a more inclusive culture at SoundCloud. Anyone can join, whether you share the identity or strive to be an ally.