Staff Product Manager, Buyer ML

Etsy; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 201,000 - 271,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity package

Annual performance bonus

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Etsy is seeking a Staff Product Manager for the Buyer Experience ML team, focusing on how machine learning connects buyers with items via recommendations, personalization, and retrieval systems. You will work across teams in a deeply collaborative, matrixed environment to align on strategy and sequencing.

The role emphasizes credibility with engineers and scientists, ability to influence without authority, and a strong track record in ML-driven product delivery, measurement, and impact.

Qualifications

• Proven ML product fluency and ability to discuss retrieval systems, ranking models, embeddings, and recommendation pipelines.
• Strong analytical mindset with data-driven decision making and clear metric choices.
• Experience driving product work across engineering and product partners in matrixed environments.
• Demonstrated discovery rigor with risk-first, lightweight tests and evidence-based decisions.

Responsibilities

• Partner with peer PMs and senior collaborators to define ML product strategy for buyer discovery and sequencing across teams.
• Collaborate with engineering in Matching, Relevance, and Recommendations while aligning Buyer Experience priorities and outcomes.
• Define signals, translate buyer behavior into ML opportunities, and drive improvements in discovery at scale.
• Lead discovery and prioritization, identifying risks and testing approaches before heavy engineering.
• Partner with ML engineers and scientists to build, evaluate, and deploy ML-driven retrieval, ranking, personalization, and recommendations.

Skills

ML product fluency

Cross-functional leadership

Analytical mindset

Discovery rigor

Experimentation

Matrixed leadership

Prioritization

Influence without authority

Job description

Company Description

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy employee, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

Company Description

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy employee, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

We believe exceptional companies are built by exceptional teams, and we're intentional about it. That means hiring great people, setting them up for success from day one, and giving them real reasons to grow their careers here. We invest in development that goes beyond promotions, and we foster the trust and relationships that help people do their best work together.

We are looking for a Staff Product Manager to join our Buyer Experience ML team. In this role, you'll be a key product leader in how Etsy uses machine learning to connect buyers with the right items at the right moment, working across recommendations, personalization, and retrieval systems that serve millions of buyers every day. This is a deeply collaborative, matrixed role: your engineering partners sit within the Matching, Relevance, and Recommendations group, and your product work directly serves multiple teams across the Buyer Experience Group. You'll work in close partnership with Buyer Signal Capture teams to ensure the signals powering our ML systems reflect real buyer intent, and alongside peer PMs across those groups to align on strategy and sequencing.

Success in this role requires someone who can lead through influence, not just authority. You'll need to earn credibility with engineering and science partners, build genuine alignment across consuming product teams, and bring a meticulous point of view on where ML investment builds the most incremental buyer value, even when you don't control all the inputs. Because of the cross-group scope and the prioritization complexity that comes with it.

This role reports directly to the VP of Buyer Experience, ensuring the work is resourced and sequenced for maximum impact.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

The Buyer Experience team crafts how millions of people discover, connect with, and purchase from Etsy’s global community of sellers. Working end-to-end across the buyer journey—from inspiration and discovery through checkout, loyalty, and long-term engagement—the team balances customer needs, business outcomes, and the outstanding dynamics of a two-sided marketplace. This is a highly collaborative, cross-functional group that partners closely with Engineering, Design, Research, Data Science, and Machine Learning to deliver thoughtful, high-quality experiences at scale. The team thrives in ambiguity and complexity, adopting experimentation and learning to navigate Etsy’s vast and ever-evolving inventory. Grounded in deep buyer insight and strong product craft, the Buyer Experience team is driven by Etsy’s mission of Keeping Commerce Human, creating experiences that feel personal, inspiring, and significant for buyers around the world.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Partner with peer PMs and senior collaborators to build and supply the ML product strategy for buyer discovery, bringing a clear point of view on where investment builds the most incremental value and helping sequence the work across teams.
• Navigate a matrixed structure with fluency: partner closely with engineering teams in Matching, Relevance, and Recommendations while keeping Buyer Experience teams aligned on priorities and outcomes.
• Work in close partnership to define what signals matter, ensure those signals are gathered well, and translate buyer behavior data into ML opportunities that improve discovery at scale.
• Set the discovery approach for your workstreams: name the biggest risk to each bet, go after it first with the cheapest tool that will guide you and look to invalidate hypotheses, before committing significant engineering investment.
• Partner deeply with ML engineers and applied scientists to prioritize, build, evaluate, and launch Machine Learning driven solutions, from retrieval and ranking to personalization and recommendations, that address real buyer needs and drive measurable business impact.
• Define and supervise outcome metrics that go beyond model quality to the buyer behavior and business outcomes that demonstrate incremental value.
• Drive prioritization conversations that balance the needs of multiple consuming teams, making the tradeoffs visible to the VP and senior collaborators when alignment is needed.
• Analyze product performance, synthesize signals from analytics, research, and customer feedback, and use that evidence to sharpen prioritization, including making the case to invest more, or to stop.
• Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require! You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time at Etsy's discretion, or otherwise applicable with local law.

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

• 6+ years of product management experience, with a significant portion working with and supplying ML-powered products in recommendations, search, personalization, or similar domains at a technology company.
• Deep ML product fluency: you understand how retrieval systems, ranking models, embeddings, and recommendation pipelines work well enough to have credible technical conversations with engineers and scientists, and to translate model tradeoffs into product decisions.
• Strong analytical demeanor: you can break ambiguous buyer problems into sized opportunities using data, define the right metrics (including the limits of those metrics), and construct a counterfactual case for where ML investment creates the most incremental value.
• Consistent track record operating in a matrixed environment: you have experience leading product work across engineering and product partners who don't share the same org structure, earning influence through credibility and clear prioritization rather than formal authority.
• Confirmed discovery rigor: you have a track record of pursuing the biggest risk first before scaling investment, using lightweight tests, mining existing signals, and letting evidence drive Stop/Pivot/Proceed calls rather than momentum.
• Experimentation fluency: strong foundation in A/B testing including hypothesis formulation, metric selection, results interpretation, and knowing when an experiment can and cannot answer your question.
• Cross-functional leadership: you've successfully driven alignment across ML engineering, applied science, analytics, and research, and earned engineering credibility through domain depth and clear decision-making, not just process.
• Initiative-level scope: experience operating in ambiguous spaces where you've participated in originating strategy across multiple teams or consuming partners, not just driven a defined roadmap.
• A genuine commitment to learning and growth: ML is moving fast. You stay current, share what you're learning, and give and receive direct feedback as a matter of habit.

Compensation & Benefits

In addition to salary, you'll be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family. Base salary is determined by your location, skills, and experience. Etsy uses two geographic pay zones to reflect the labor markets where we compete for talent: one called Geo-1, covering the New York City metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle metropolitan area, and one called Geo-2, covering all other U.S. locations. Salary ranges for this role vary by zone and are listed below.

Location

We prioritize candidates based within commutable distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn Office. Depending on proximity, we ask team members to come in once or twice per week. Remote candidates outside commutable distance may be considered on a case‑by‑case basis, with the expectation of occasional travel to the office. Learn more details about our work modes and workplace safety policies here.

Salary Range

• Geo-1: 201,000.00 - 271,000.00 USD Annual
• Geo-2: 180,000.00 - 244,000.00 USD Annual

What's Next

If you're interested in joining the team at Etsy, please share your resume with us and feel free to include a cover letter if you'd like. As we hope you've seen already, Etsy is a place that values individuality and variety. We don't want you to be like everyone else -- we want you to be like you! So tell us what you're all about.

Our Promise

At Etsy, we believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace furthers relevance, resilience, and longevity. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Etsy is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion or creed, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship or immigration status, marital or familial status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the interview or hiring process, please let your recruiter know and we will work with you to meet your needs. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.