Senior Applied Scientist I, Recommendations Ranking

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 Inc. employee, whether a team member of Etsy or Depop, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

Salary Range:

$183,000.00 - $216,000.00

What's the role?

We are looking for a passionate and talented Applied Machine Learning Scientist to join our Recommendation Ranking team. Our team develops Machine Learning models to understand buyers, personalize, and rank recommendations across Etsy.com and the Etsy app. As an Applied Scientist, you will work closely with Software Engineers to improve the shopping experience for 90+ million buyers. We are looking for individuals who are product & technology driven, and are passionate about making ML innovations in areas such as: Ranking, Reinforcement Learning, LLM and Deep Learning!

This is a full-time position reporting to the Engineering Manager. In addition to salary, you will also be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family as part of your total rewards package at Etsy. 

For this role, we are considering candidates based in the United States. Candidates living within commutable distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn Office Hub may be the first to be considered. For candidates within commutable distance, Etsy requires in-office attendance once or twice per week depending on your proximity to the office. Etsy offers different work modes to meet the variety of needs and preferences of our team. Learn more details about our  work modes and workplace safety policies here.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Work closely with software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and designers to set the future technical direction of Etsy’s recommendation system

• Push the state of the art and apply the latest advances in ML to improve buyer and seller experiences on Etsy such as:

  • Build user models that allow us to better understand the unique interests, tastes, and shopping mission of Etsy’s buyers.

  • Develop models that target Etsy-specific problems, including but not limited to personalized ranking, multi-objective optimization, diversity constraints etc.

  • Design foresight and intent prediction models that anticipate future buyer needs, predict lifecycle transitions.

  • Improve feed reactivity and freshness, ensuring recommendations adapt quickly to user actions, emerging trends and seasonal shifts.

• Prototype, optimize, and productionize large-scale ML models that help deliver key results 

• Conduct experiments (A/B testing etc.) to validate the effectiveness of ML models and pipelines 

• 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: 

• You have a successful track record of applying machine learning techniques in addressing real-world problems.

• You have experience with / working in one of the following fields: deep learning, multi-modal learning, reinforcement learning etc. 

• You have hands-on experience in training, deploying, monitoring, debugging and iterating on production machine learning systems in search, recommendation, and/or ads systems.

• You have production experience developing large-scale machine learning systems in Python, Scala, PyTorch, TensorFlow or similar languages.

• You write understandable and testable code. You have the ability to write and manipulate data at a large scale and you have an eye towards maintainability. 

• An M.S. or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science or related engineering fields with at least two years of practical machine learning experience

 

Additional Information
 

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. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the application or interview process, please let your recruiter know. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.