Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Snap
Ad Ranking
$276-414k
This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs
Office located in Palo Alto, CA or Santa Monica, CA
Social media & camera company
Be an early applicant
Social media & camera company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$276-414k
This position is eligible for equity in the form of RSUs
Office located in Palo Alto, CA or Santa Monica, CA
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 setting the direction for a team whose primary output is online ranking / recommendation models
- Ability to design, train, and optimize advanced machine learning models
- Excellent programming and software design skills
- Ability to proactively learn new concepts and technology and apply them at work
- Skilled at solving ambiguous problems and leading and executing complex technical initiatives
- Strong collaboration and mentorship skills
- Bachelor's in a technical field such as computer science, mathematics, statistics or equivalent years of experience
- 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
- Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or related deep learning frameworks
Desirable
- Experience in online advertising, including ad targeting, ranking, auction, and/or marketplace optimization
- Advanced degree in a related field such as machine learning, computer vision, or mathematics
- Experience partnering with cross-functional executives and management across a globally distributed organization and exercising sound judgment
- Track record of delivery in rapidly changing, highly collaborative, multi-site, multi-stakeholder environments
- Experience working with a diverse group of engineers
- Experience contributing to AI publications
What the job involves
- Drive the technical roadmap of the Ad Ranking team, advance the core ML capabilities of the ad optimization stack, and support various business verticals including app / web monetization and dynamic product ads
- Design, implement, and scale critical machine learning models to support Snap's monetization strategies
- 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
- Collaborate with leadership to up-level the ML tech stack and improve the performance of the organization
- 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
Application process
- End Date: September 1, 2025
Our take
Snap is the social media giant that owns Snapchat, a social media mobile app released in 2011. Created to serve as a more emotive communication form than texting, the app has gained mass popularity, reaching upwards of 400 million daily users worldwide.
After rejecting a billion dollar acquisition from Meta (then Facebook) in 2013, Snap has found itself in competition with the social media giant, particularly with Instagram. Despite this, the company has marked a place for itself in the ever competitive social media space through developing features like a Discover tab, augmented reality lenses, in-app games, ads and monetisation options, as well as launching its paid service, Snapchat+.
Snap has so far not earned an annual profit since going public in 2017, but as Snapchat's user base has continually increased it has nearly closed the gap. Like other tech companies it suffered in late 2022 due to a surprise drop in advertising revenue, but has been rebuilding to its former trajectory since then. Given Snapchat's lasting popularity amongst young people, 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
- Paid maternity, paternity and family caregiver leave
- Adoption, surrogacy, infertility and fertility preservation benefits
- Backup child care coverage, caregiver assistance and digital maternity care support
- Short-term disability, long-term disability, life insurance and AD&D insurance
- Comprehensive medical coverage, including PPO, HSA and HMO options
- Dental coverage, including orthodontia benefits
- Vision coverage, including LASIK benefits
- Gym perks and discounts
- Team fitness classes, hikes and races
- Sports leagues
- Cooking and nutritional workshops
- Generous time off and leave programmes
- Meditation and yoga classes
- Emotional and mental health support programmes and apps
- Social gatherings, team outings and volunteering programmes
- Speaker series, classes and subscriptions to educational programmes
- 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!)
- Rocket Lawyer memberships
- Financial education programmes
- Compensation packages that let you share in Snap's long-term success!
- Have a teammate going through a tough time? Lend them a hand through our internal Snap-a-wish programme! We'll work hard to make sure they get the support they need.
Company HQ
Sunset Park, Santa Monica, CA
Leadership
Evan Spiegel
(CEO)Graduated from Standford with a BS in Product Design.
Bobby Murphy
(CTO)Studied Mathematical and Computational Science at Stanford.
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