Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, ML Understanding

Ladders; United States; Remote; USD 266,000 - 372,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

401k with match

Global benefits programs

Family planning support

Mental health resources

Flexible vacation policy

Parental leave

Job summary

Ladders is seeking a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer focused on understanding users at scale. You will shape strategy and technical direction for personalization, embeddings, and LLM-driven models across our media products.

Remote role for US-based candidates with impactful cross-team collaboration to improve engagement, retention, and product experiences. Compensation ranges publicly from $266,000 to $372,400 annually.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling production-grade ML systems with user modeling.
• Proven experience leading high-impact projects from concept to production.
• Strong focus on real-world metrics like engagement and retention.
• Solid understanding of mainstream user modeling ML techniques and their practical applications.
• Experience applying LLMs or foundation models to enhance existing systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement a comprehensive user understanding framework with embeddings and LLMs.
• Design advanced user models for personalization across products.
• Utilize LLMs to enhance user profiles and understanding of behavior.
• Collaborate with platform teams to build robust infrastructure for large-scale learning and serving.
• Drive cross-team integration and measurement of user model impact across products.

Skills

User modeling

Recommender systems

ML systems scaling

LLMs / foundation models

Project leadership

Engagement metrics

Job description

For our client, we are seeking a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, ML Understanding to join the team of a leader in the Media space. This role will shape the strategy and technical direction for user understanding at scale, with a focus on personalization, embeddings, and LLM-driven models. You will partner closely with platform and product teams to improve how user behavior is modeled and how those insights translate into better experiences across the company's products. The work is highly cross-functional and will have measurable impact on engagement, retention, and the performance of large-scale learning systems.

Location: Remote - US based candidates only, no visa sponsorship available

Compensation: $266,000 – $372,400 annually

Responsibilities

• Define and implement a comprehensive user understanding framework incorporating embeddings and LLMs.
• Design advanced user models for improved personalization across the company's products.
• Utilize LLMs to enhance user profiles and deepen understanding of user behavior.
• Collaborate with platform teams to build robust infrastructure for large-scale learning and serving.
• Drive cross-team integration and measurement of user model impact across multiple product teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling production-grade ML systems, especially with user modeling and recommender systems.
• Proven experience leading high-impact projects from concept to production.
• Strong focus on real-world metrics, including engagement and retention.
• Solid understanding of mainstream user modeling ML techniques and their practical applications.
• Experience applying LLMs or foundation models to enhance existing systems.

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits and income replacement programs.
• 401k with employer match.
• Global benefit programs for diverse employee needs and professional development.
• Support for family planning and gender-affirming care.
• Mental health and coaching resources.
• Flexible vacation policy and paid volunteer time off.
• Generous paid parental leave.

Our client is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet every qualification—your background could be exactly what this team needs.