Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Twilio
$180-239k
Salary dependant on location + Equity + Bonus
Cloud communications software
Open for applications
Cloud communications software
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$180-239k
Salary dependant on location + Equity + Bonus
1001+ employees
Company mission
To enable innovators across every industry - from emerging leaders to the world’s largest organisations - to reinvent how companies engage with their customers.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years hands on experience as an engineer writing production-grade code in a modern programming language (language agnostic)
- 3+ years of research experience in a professional or academic setting where building your idea and testing it with customers was a must
- Experience evaluating the performance of different ML models/versions and making enhancements
- Experience working collaboratively with ML engineers, data scientists or ML Researchers
- Experience building an ML model and operating it in a production environment
- Passion for emerging technologies and staying up to date on their latest developments
- Proven track record of shipping products to production, testing ideas early with customers and iterating rapidly on their feedback
- Exceptional collaboration skills, the key to our success is going to be tied to our ability to partner with other parts of the organization and help them be successful
- Strong customer focus, our feedback loop with customers will be very tight!
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Our ideas will only be as good as our ability to share them
Desirable
- You have previously shared your ideas in public forums through blog posts, meetup presentations, or speaking at conferences
- Experience building a product from idea to product market fit (zero to one)
- Experience leading the development of products or features which leverage LLMs
- Builder at heart. Through a hobby or your profession, you are passionate about being hands on and seeing your work come to life
What the job involves
- This position is needed to spearhead ML/AI focused research projects, build prototypes, and explore emerging technologies for Twilio's Emerging Technology & Innovation (ETI) organization
- Twilio's ETI organization is focused on exploring the future of customer engagement through research and experimentation
- We dream big, but we also believe in rapidly prototyping our ideas to share with real customers for feedback and iteration
- As an early member of this new organization, you will have the chance to influence the strategy and culture of our organization
- As a Principal Machine Learning Engineer of the ETI organization, you will be responsible for leading research projects, experimenting with proof of concepts, and staying on the cutting edge of “what if”
- There are many exciting challenges ahead of us and we are looking for an engineer who is comfortable with ambiguity, has a proven track record for delivering results, and has experience with the emerging technologies of AI, LLMs, and a passion for keeping up with their latest developments
- Research new ML and AI technologies and tools
- Build prototypes to further your research and test them with customers
- Collaborate with data scientists, engineers, and developers to integrate AI models and algorithms into existing systems and applications
- Collaborate closely with your product, design and go to market partners to ensure our work puts the customer first and we are all rowing in the same direction
- Rapidly acquire new technical skills and knowledge in a fast-paced, high-delivery environment
- There will be a steep learning curve to this job, you should be comfortable diving in the deep end and creating clarity for yourself
- Influence steering committee discussions on leveraging AI across the whole of Twilio
- Most importantly, Experiment
- As our new team grows, you should embody the practice of testing out new ideas and iterating based on feedback
- Not only in the products you deliver, but in the way we conduct ML/AL research at Twilio
Our take
Traditionally, it has been difficult for businesses to establish communications systems in-house. Twilio was founded from frustration with this expensive and cumbersome process, providing easy-to-use APIs to let businesses send and receive telephone and text communications.
From these beginnings, the company has expanded through acquisitions and product development to provide a suite of services around market data and customer engagement. It is now a market leader in this space, and has developed a customer base of more than 150,000 businesses including enterprise brands such as Deliveroo, Duolingo and Toyota.
With that said, aggressive expansion and lack of maturity in some of its products has impacted the company's efficiency, and like many of its peers it has been forced to restructure heavily to remain competitive. Coming out of this restructuring, the company will focus on profitability, streamlining decision making and R&D to put itself in good stead for future success.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jul 2015
$130m
SERIES E
Jun 2013
$70m
SERIES D
Total funding: $250.7m
Company benefits
- Generous annual time off in all countries
- Comprehensive health programs
- Programs to help our employees plan for their retirement needs
- Generous maternity, paternity, and adoption leaves, as well as family medical care leave
- Build and present a Twilio app to earn your Twilio track jacket and receive $30 per month for e-books for continued learning and education
- Variety of snacks, drinks, and catered meals in each of our locations
- Work from home opportunities
Company values
- We are Builders: We love hard problems and believe in the indomitable power of people's ability to create a better world through ingenuity and resourcefulness. We reject the “can’t be done” and believe bold ideas and fearless iteration can resolve the most challenging problems for our customers and the world they operate in
- We are Owners: We take accountability and see things through. We take the long view, sweat the details, and think about how our work makes Twilio better every day. We recognize that we and others do our best work when we feel both empowered and accountable for outcomes
- We are Curious: We see ourselves as works in progress. We know that we don’t have all the answers, humbly seek the truth, and strive to get better every day. As individuals, as a company, and in our products, we seek continual progress over perfection and acknowledge shortcomings as a matter of fact. Progress comes not from avoiding mistakes or hard truths, but in learning from them
- We are Positrons: A positron is a positively charged electron. We are genuinely excited to serve and help others. We believe that positive energy is contagious and caring is critical. We seek to be bright spots for the people around us in every interaction, and we stand up and work for what we believe is good and right for our customers, our company, our communities, and the world at large
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Articles
Leadership
Khozema Shipchandler
(CEO, not founder)Has been at the company since 2018, beginning as CFO then working as COO, President of Communications then CEO. Prior to this, spent 20 years at GE, ultimately as CCO of GE Digital.
People progressing
Joined as a Business Development Representative and promoted to Team Lead Account Representative after 2 years. After four more promotions, Gilmore now works as Senior Manager of Strategic Accounts.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Twilio
- Building diverse teams: We thrive when we welcome a diversity of identities, experiences, and perspectives to the team. We know that building diverse teams requires us to dismantle barriers and address the opportunity gap, and we are driving programs to do just that.
- Creating equitable experiences: Building more diverse teams is only part of the equation. It is equally important that we promote equity within our workplace as well
- Cultivating inclusive environments: Every team member plays a role in fostering an environment that is psychologically safe and inclusive. This is a significant responsibility for our managers and leaders, who hold influence and power. Therefore, we are driving educational and engagement opportunities to activate inclusive leadership behaviors throughout the organization
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