{"id":873,"url":"https://alion.io/job/character-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search","title":"Software Engineer, Applied ML (Discovery, Recommendation & Search)","company":{"id":36,"name":"Character.AI","domain":"character.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/character-ai","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"D","score":40,"open_postings":13,"ghost_share":1,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Redwood City, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"gRPC","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"TPU","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-12-18T03:00:32Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-12-18","last_verified_at":"2026-10-22T04:42:32Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":308,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":307},"description":"About the Role\nAs a Software / ML Engineer you will work cross functionally with product, data science and data platform to identify, design and implement the applied ML models and infra, ranging from the model optimization, data pipeline to model training and serving infrastructure, on one of the fastest growing native AI consumer applications on the market today. You will work on implementation of our ML backend systems to power the discovery surfaces including recommendation, ranking and search, supporting new AI generated content formats on our product while working with the team to support optimizing our existing systems.\nRequirements:\nB.A.S. in Computer Science or equivalent experience.\n\n5+ years of industry experience\n\nExperience building/consuming RESTful and gRPC based web-services\n\nExperience building and managing infrastructure in a cloud environment (GCP, AWS or Azure)\n\nFamiliar with one of the popular ML Frameworks like Pytorch, Tensorflow\n\nExperience writing highly performant service in a modern typed language\n\nExperience configuring and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and automated testing\n\nDesired Experience:\nExperience with shipping intelligent features, end-to-end, and from idea to production\n\nExperience with understanding, designing or implementing a full pipeline from data ingestion to model training.\n\nExperience with production AI/ML systems and services including optimizing GPU/TPU deployments\n\nExperience working with vector databases or other feature storage\n\nYou will be a good fit if you are proactive and have a “get things done” mindset. Given our current pace of growth and load on our systems, most people have had a significant impact during their first week at the company.\nAbout Character.AI\nCharacter.AI empowers people to connect, learn and tell stories through interactive entertainment. Over 20 million people visit Character.AI every month, using our technology to supercharge their creativity and imagination. Our platform lets users engage with tens of millions of characters, enjoy unlimited conversations, and embark on infinite adventures.\nIn just two years, we achieved unicorn status and were honored as Google Play's AI App of the Year-a testament to our innovative technology and visionary approach.\nJoin us and be a part of establishing this new entertainment paradigm while shaping the future of Consumer AI!\nAt Character, we value diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly uphold a non-discrimination policy based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability. Your unique perspectives are vital to our success.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2690,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["LLM & Generative AI","Conversational AI","Foundation Models"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2025-12-18T03:00:32Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":5,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.193,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":307,"expected_fill_days":37,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","ghost","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/character-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/character-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-22T04:49:30Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":5418,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-23T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":36},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=36"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcharacter-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcharacter-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcharacter-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/character-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcharacter-ai-software-engineer-applied-ml-discovery-recommendation-search"}]}