Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Snap Inc.
Ad Marketplace, Level 7
$276-414k
+ Equity in the form of RSUs.
4 days a week in office
Social media & camera company
Be an early applicant
Social media & camera company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$276-414k
+ Equity in the form of RSUs.
4 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.
Role
Who you are
- Strong understanding of machine learning and deep learning approaches and algorithms, and their applications to advertising, recommendation, and/or search domain
- Experience leading teams or roadmaps focused on recommendation, personalization, or generative AI
- Ability to design, train, deploy, and optimize state-of-the-art machine learning models for performance, reliability, and scale
- Excellent programming and software engineering skills, with an emphasis on clean design and production-readiness
- Ability to quickly learn new technologies and apply them effectively in ambiguous problem spaces
- Skilled at solving ambiguous problems and leading and executing complex technical initiatives
- Strong collaboration, communication, and mentorship abilities
- 9+ years of post-Bachelor’s machine learning experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 8+ year of post-grad ML experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 5+ years of post-grad ML experience
- 2+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization
- Experience developing and shipping performant and scalable machine learning models for recommendation or ranking use cases
Desirable
- Advanced degree in a related field such as machine learning, computer vision, or mathematics
- Experience in online advertising (including ad ranking, auction, marketplace optimization) or other online two-sided markets (e.g., job markets and matching)
- Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or related deep learning frameworks
- Track record of delivery in rapidly changing, highly collaborative, multi-site, multi-stakeholder environments
- Experience contributing to AI publications
What the job involves
- Snap Engineering teams build fun and technically sophisticated products that reach hundreds of millions of Snapchatters around the world, every day
- We're looking for a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to join the Ad Marketplace team at Snap!
- You'll drive the technical roadmap of our Ad Marketplace and Pacing teams, advancing the sophistication of our systems, optimize ad spend and delivery, and make our auction more efficient
- Design, implement, and scale machine learning models and control systems to efficiently and optimally run our ad marketplace
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to set and align on machine learning strategies to meet company objectives
- Stay up-to-date with the latest technology in machine learning and apply this knowledge to tackle complex problems in innovative ways
- Work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver the solutions needed to build innovative products or services
- Advocate for and apply best practices when it comes to availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management
- Provide technical direction that influences the entire ML community
Our take
Snap Inc. is the social-media company behind Snapchat, a mobile app launched in 2011 that prioritises visual and emotive communication over traditional texting. Born from a desire to share real-time moments with authenticity, the app now boasts a massive global reach with daily active users surpassing 460M and monthly active users well beyond 900M.
After rejecting a billion-dollar acquisition offer from MEta Platforms (then Facebook) in 2023, Snapchat entered into a long-term rivalry with Meta's apps (most notably Instagram). Despite the competition, Snap has carved out a distinct place in the social-media landscape by innovating features such as the "Discover" tab, augmented-reality (AR) lenses, in-app gaming, paid subscriptions via Snapchat+, and robust ad-monetisation options.
Snap has yet to post a full-year profit since going public in 2017, but the company is clearly making progress. In Q1 2025 the net loss was narrowed to roughly $140M, down from $305M the year before, and revenue rose 14% to $1.36B. Advertising revenue remains periodic and macro-factors still pose headwinds, yet Snaps enduring popularity and its expanding product mix suggest that further success appears likely.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-9% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
May 2016
$1.8bn
SERIES F
Mar 2015
$200m
SERIES E
Total funding: $2.6bn
Company benefits
- Up to 28 weeks of parental leave and return-to-work program
- Adoption, surrogacy, infertility, and fertility preservation benefits
- Backup child care coverage, center-based care support, & caregiver assistance
- Dependent Daycare Flexible Spending Account
- Short-term disability, long-term disability, basic life insurance, and AD&D insurance
- Services to support your path to parenthood & beyond - fertility support & family planning via Carrot, SNOO, Hinge Health
- Lactation rooms (based on office location) and breastmilk shipping coverage
- For Snap, employees taking care of loved ones with complex, chronic, or ongoing care needs (i.e. parent with Dementia, spouse with Cancer, child with Autism), your family can save time, money, & stress with Wellthy
- Comprehensive medical coverage, including PPO, HDHP with HSA, and HMO options
- Dental coverage, including orthodontia benefits
- Vision coverage, including frame and contact allowance and LASIK benefits
- Free membership to One Medical for primary and urgent healthcare services
- Business Travel Insurance
- Gym perks and discounts
- Team fitness classes and races
- Sports leagues
- Cooking and nutritional workshops
- Well-being reimbursement
- Unlimited access to virtual physical therapy with Anthem
- 15 sessions per year of mental health for you + dependents through Lyra
- Generous time off and leave programs. In the US, this includes the following:
- Up to 3 weeks (120 hours) of vacation time and 1 floating holiday for non-exempt team members
- 12 paid holidays per year
- 15 sick and safe days per year
- Meditation and yoga classes
- Speaker series, classes, and subscriptions to educational programs
- Social gatherings, team outings, and volunteering programs
- Snap Inc. provides a 401(k) plan that allows you to save on a pre-tax, Roth, and after-tax basis for your retirement (yes, we even have the Mega backdoor option!) Snap will also match 100% up to 3% of your contribution and then 50% on your 4th and 5th%
- Flexible Spending Accounts for healthcare, daycare and commuter
- Health Savings Account with employer contributions
- Rocket Lawyer memberships
- Financial education programs
- Snap exclusive discounts and perks
- Compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!
Company HQ
Sunset Park, Santa Monica, CA
Leadership
Evan Spiegel
(Co-Founder & CEO)Graduated from Stanford with a BS in Product Design.
Salary benchmarks
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