Staff Applied Scientist, Ads Personalization

Unity; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 172,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health, life, and family

Commute subsidy

Employee stock ownership

Competitive retirement/pension plans

Generous vacation and personal days

Support for new parents through leave

Office snacks

Mental Health and Wellbeing programs

Employee Resource Groups

Global Employee Assistance Program

Training and development programs

Volunteering and donation matching

Job summary

Unity, the world’s leading game engine, is hiring for its Gamer AI team in Mountain View. Join us to design and maintain user understanding models that power ad ranking and recommendations across our ecosystem.

You’ll help monitor model quality, address data drift, and collaborate with leads to set long‑term direction while communicating complex concepts to non‑engineering stakeholders. This role offers impact on scale and experience in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS or Ph.D.) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and operating large-scale Ads delivery and optimization systems.
• 3+ years of experience in content understanding, behavior modeling, user profiling, and cohort analysis.
• Significant experience in one or more general-purpose programming languages like Python, Go, Scala, C++ or similar.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain user understanding models.
• Ensure model quality and reliability by continuously monitoring performance, calibrating predictions, and addressing data drift or delayed feedback.
• Actively participate and work with other leads to set the long-term direction for the team, plan and oversee engineering designs and project execution.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts to non-engineering stakeholders.

Skills

Programming (Python/Go/Scala/C++)

Model monitoring & evaluation

Cross-team collaboration

Education

MS or PhD in Computer Science / ML / Statistics

Tools

Big data platforms

Job description

The opportunity

At Unity, we’re committed to building a culture that fosters collaboration and innovation. Within our fast-paced environment, we’re tackling complex challenges that drive meaningful impact for creators and users across our ecosystem.

Our Gamer AI team plays a central role in this effort by developing state-of-the-art conversion rate (CVR) prediction and market price models that power our ad ranking and recommendation systems. By leveraging large-scale data and contextual signals, we continuously enhance prediction relevance and accuracy. This drives outcomes such as higher user engagement, stronger conversion performance, and better return on ad spend, helping advertisers achieve their goals while delivering a more engaging experience for users.

What you’ll be doing

• Design, implement, and maintain user understanding models.
• Ensure model quality and reliability by continuously monitoring performance, calibrating predictions, and addressing data drift or delayed feedback.
• Actively participate and work with other leads to set the long-term direction for the team, plan and oversee engineering designs and project execution.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts to non-engineering stakeholders.

What we’re looking for

• Advanced degree (MS or Ph.D.) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of hands‑on experience building and operating large-scale Ads delivery and optimization systems.
• 3+ years of experience in content understanding, behavior modeling, user profiling, and cohort analysis.
• Significant experience in one or more general-purpose programming languages like Python, Go, Scala, C++ or similar.
• Knowledge of metric design, experimentation methodologies, and large-scale data analysis.

You might also have

• Experience designing and productionising optimization algorithms in an ad serving platform and/or other marketplaces.
• Experience with state-of-the-art control systems, reinforcement learning algorithms.

Additional Information

Gross pay annually: $172,200 - $283,900 USD

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

• 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
• Volunteering and donation matching program

Life at Unity

Unity [NYSE: U] is the world’s leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative console games, and virtually all of the top XR and Web Games are developed, deployed, and grown in Unity. Unity also enables teams across industries like automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare to design, simulate, and collaborate in 3D - closing the gap between ideas and reality. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

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. If you have a disability that means there are preparations or accommodations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please fill out this form to let us know.

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. This posting is intended to fill an existing vacancy, and we are committed to providing applicants with updates throughout the hiring process in accordance with applicable law.

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