Principal Engineer, Quizlet

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field
• 10+ years of industry experience in software engineering with a track record of architecting and launching large-scale, business-critical recommendation, search, or personalization systems
• Proven experience setting technical direction for a team and driving consensus on complex engineering challenges
• Deep technical expertise in machine learning, including ranking models, collaborative filtering, deep learning, and representation learning (embeddings)
• Demonstrated success in mentoring and developing senior engineering talent
• A strong strategic and product-oriented mindset, with the ability to translate high-level business needs into a clear, actionable technical architecture

Desirable

• As the Principal Engineer for Personalization & Recommendation Systems, you will serve as the technical authority and visionary for building a deep, holistic understanding of our learners
• You will tackle our most complex technical challenges, architecting the core intelligence of our product to transform Quizlet from a memorization tool into a personalized, AI-powered coach that drives user engagement, retention, and monetization
• Additionally, you’ll be the technical lead for a team of talented engineers, guiding the architecture and execution of recommendation and matching systems that connect students to the most relevant content across our entire platform
• This includes: search, ads, and our content feed
• Your technical leadership will be pivotal in shaping the future of AI at Quizlet
• We’re happy to share that this is an onsite position in our San Francisco office
• To help foster team collaboration, we require that employees be in the office a minimum of three days per week: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and as needed by your manager or the company
• We believe that this working environment facilitates increased work efficiency, team partnership, and supports growth as an employee and organization
• Architect, design, and execute the technical roadmap for all personalization and recommendation initiatives, directly contributing to Quizlet’s key business metrics like Engaged Learners, Subscriber Conversion, and Revenue Growth
• Set the technical direction and provide mentorship to a high-performing team of 10+ machine learning and software engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and high-impact execution
• Spearhead the technical development of "User 360" - a comprehensive understanding of our learners derived from synthesizing behavioral signals, explicit inputs, and conversation history into rich user profiles and embeddings
• Own the end-to-end technical lifecycle of machine learning models that power all matching and ranking systems across the product (ads, search, feed), optimizing for both offline performance (e.g. , NDCG) and online business impact (e.g. , CTR, user satisfaction)
• Drive technical excellence in building scalable, reliable, and cutting-edge ML systems, tackling the most ambiguous and complex problems
• Partner closely with leaders in Product, Data Science, and the AI & Data Platform teams to deliver on a shared vision of an AI-driven learning experience
• Influence the technical direction of the broader engineering organization by establishing best practices and mentoring senior engineers