Machine Learning Engineer, Etsy
Search, Ads & Recommendations
$164-246k
Actual salary range is dependent on location. Offers equity package and an annual performance bonus
More information about location
Office located in Brooklyn, New York
eCommerce platform for handcrafted goods
Be an early applicant
eCommerce platform for handcrafted goods
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$164-246k
Actual salary range is dependent on location. Offers equity package and an annual performance bonus
More information about location
Office located in Brooklyn, New York
1001+ employees
Company mission
To keep human connection at the heart of commerce.
Role
Who you are
- A track record of applying statistical and machine learning techniques to real-world problems
- Expertise or experience in one or more of: information retrieval, search, recommendations, ads, natural language processing, deep learning, multi-modal learning, or reinforcement learning
- Hands-on experience training, deploying, monitoring, debugging, and iterating on production ML systems in search, recommendation, and/or ads
- Production experience building large-scale ML systems in Python, Java, Scala, or similar languages, with modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow/TFX
- The ability to write and manipulate data at large scale, and to write understandable, testable, maintainable code
- The ability to create requirements and lead your team from design through delivery
- A collaborative, empathetic approach, with clear and constructive communication across disciplines
- Care about the implications of your work on end users
- M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related engineering field with at least two years of practical machine learning experience, or equivalent experience
What the job involves
- We're hiring Machine Learning Engineers at the Senior and Staff levels to join one of our Search and Discovery teams: Search Ads, Recommendations Ranking, or Search Retrieval
- You will build user-centric ML systems for a two-sided marketplace with 90+ million buyers, 6+ million sellers, and hundreds of millions of unique, handmade, and vintage listings
- We're looking for people who are product- and delivery-driven and passionate about applying ML innovations (ranking, retrieval, deep learning, reinforcement learning, LLMs, and more) to improve the Etsy buyer and seller experience
- You'll own models end-to-end, from data and feature pipelines through training, evaluation, and production serving, and validate their impact through live A/B experiments on Etsy.com and the Etsy app. Team placement is based on your background, level, and interests, and will be discussed during the interview process
- This is a full-time position reporting to the Engineering Manager of the team you join
- We apply cutting-edge machine learning, deep learning, and information retrieval techniques to high-impact problems at Etsy scale. Depending on your experience, you may be considered for one of the following teams:
- Search Ads: Builds the ML systems behind our sponsored search product, including retrieval, ranking, ad allocation, and user engagement modeling. We ensure the right ads reach the right buyers, personalize the ad experience to each buyer's journey, and help sellers get the most from their advertising budgets, all on a pipeline that scales to our 90+ million buyers and sellers
- Recommendations Ranking: Develops ML models that understand buyers, personalize, and rank recommendations across Etsy.com and the Etsy app. Work includes user modeling, personalized ranking, multi-objective optimization, intent and lifecycle prediction, and keeping feeds fresh and reactive to user actions, emerging trends, and seasonal shifts
- Search Retrieval: Builds efficient, scalable, and intelligent retrieval systems that surface the most relevant listings from a catalog of over a hundred million unique items. We combine lexical matching, semantic retrieval, and hybrid models to power the first step inEtsy's search stack, using techniques such as dual-encoder models, vector similarity search, and query expansion
- Work cross-functionally with software engineers, applied scientists, data scientists, product managers, designers, and analytics partners, and communicate your ideas and model capabilities clearly to each
- Apply the latest advances in machine learning and information retrieval to improve relevance, personalization, and buyer and seller engagement
- Prototype, optimize, and productionize large-scale ML models, owning the path from data and feature pipelines through training, evaluation, serving, and monitoring
- Design and run A/B experiments (online and offline) to validate the effectiveness, efficiency, latency, and buyer impact of ML models and pipelines
- Investigate and resolve nuanced issues in model and system behavior, and measure and improve our products with product and analytics partners
- Depending on your team, work on problems such as retrieval and ranking for sponsored search, ad allocation, user modeling, personalized ranking, multi-objective optimization, intent prediction, dual-encoder and hybrid retrieval, and large-scale indexing and serving
- 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
Our take
Created as an alternative to more corporate eCommerce sites, Etsy is a peer-to-peer (P2P) website where users buy and sell handmade crafts, vintage items, art and photography. The online marketplace works similarly to Amazon and eBay, only with an emphasis on unique items rather than mass-produced merchandise.
Since its IPO in 2015, it has managed to hold its own in an increasingly competitive eCommerce industry, including from Amazon's handmade section that launched in 2015. Further, by providing sellers with ownership over pricing and branding, the site is attractive for those wanting to set up a business on an established platform.
However, the seller-side of Etsy is not without problems. A hike in transaction fees and the introduction of mandatory marketing fees for artists with high turnovers created significant discontent amongst sellers. Despite this, Etsy continues to connect artists and consumers, attracting shoppers with its message of extraordinary, handmade and affordable products.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
8% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
May 2012
$40m
LATE VC
Aug 2010
$20m
SERIES E
Total funding: $91.7m
Company benefits
- Equity (offers vary by country)
- Performance bonuses
- Paid gender neutral parental leave
- Adoption and family planning
- Back-up care
- Volunteer time off
- Donation matching
- Employee resource groups
- Global virtual events
- Employer paid health benefits
- Fitness benefits
- Wellness programming
- Mental health benefits
- 401K matching/Pension contributions
Company HQ
Downtown Brooklyn, NY
Leadership
Josh Silverman
(CEO)Previously senior executive at eBay, CEO of Shopping.com, CEO of Skype and President of Consumer Products & Services at American Express.
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