Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendations Retrieval

Company Description

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy employee, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

We believe exceptional companies are built by exceptional teams, and we're intentional about it. That means hiring great people, setting them up for success from day one, and giving them real reasons to grow their careers here. We invest in development that goes beyond promotions, and we foster the trust and relationships that help people do their best work together.

What’s the Role?

The Recommendations Retrieval team builds the systems that identify the most relevant and inspiring Etsy listings for each buyer before ranking. We develop large-scale retrieval models and pipelines that use behavioral, textual, visual, and marketplace signals to help buyers discover items - even when they cannot yet articulate what they are looking for.

How can we help someone find that perfect item, even when they don’t know what they’re looking for?

How can the recommendations experience make Etsy come to life and feel as vibrant as the community of makers that’s behind it?

How can we understand buyer’s motives and interests to personalize their experience?

How can we help buyers to explore the breadth of Etsy's inventory?

This is a full-time position reporting to the Engineering Manager.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

The Recommendations Retrieval squad serves needs across the organization, helping the organization to leverage visual information and understand our unique and interesting inventory. As an engineer on our team, you will play a major role in improving the shopping experience for millions of Etsy buyers. We’re a cross-functional group of engineers, machine learning scientists, and product managers, and we interface with a diverse set of staff, ranging from data scientists, designers, product facing engineers and managers, and more!

With your help, we are giving our buyers better tools to find what they are looking for and to help them form a connection with our sellers. In this role, you will put your skills to use by helping us improve candidate retrieval and personalized recommendations through machine learning, including embedding-based retrieval, multimodal understanding, generative retrieval and large-scale offline and online evaluation.You will also create workflows and pipelines to effectively transform data into appropriate results for our buyers. You will join a talented team of engineers to collaborate on all of these projects.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Build and improve large-scale retrieval and recommendation systems that help Etsy buyers discover relevant, personalized, and inspiring inventory.
• Develop and productionize machine learning models and data pipelines across the recommendations stack, using technologies such as Python, Scala, PySpark, Google Cloud Platform, and Airflow.
• Own projects end to end: from problem framing, data exploration, and offline evaluation through experimentation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration in production.
• Partner closely with product, analytics, and machine learning infrastructure teams to design, prioritize, and deliver high-impact customer experiences.
• Contribute to reliable, maintainable systems through thoughtful technical design, code reviews, testing, and operational excellence.
• Share context clearly, seek diverse perspectives, and help create an inclusive, collaborative team environment.
• As a member of a fast-moving team, you’ll also take on other responsibilities that support Etsy’s evolving business and customer needs.
• Empathy, communication, and technical skill are valued equally.
• 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.

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

• You have a successful track record of applying machine learning techniques in addressing real-world problems.
• You have experience with / working in one of the following fields: deep learning, multi-modal learning, reinforcement learning etc.
• You have hands-on experience in training, deploying, monitoring, debugging and iterating on production machine learning systems in search, recommendation, and/or ads systems.
• You have production experience developing large-scale machine learning systems in Python, Scala, PyTorch, TensorFlow or similar languages.
• You write understandable and testable code. You have the ability to write and manipulate data at a large scale and you have an eye towards maintainability.
• You have a master’s degree, Ph.D., or equivalent practical experience in machine learning, computer science, or a related field, with experience building and operating production ML systems.

Compensation & Benefits

In addition to salary, you'll be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family. Base salary is determined by your location, skills, and experience.

Etsy uses two geographic pay zones to reflect the labor markets where we compete for talent: one called Geo-1, covering the New York City metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle metropolitan area, and one called Geo-2, covering all other U.S. locations. Salary ranges for this role vary by zone and are listed below.

Location

We prioritize candidates based within commutable distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn Office. Depending on proximity, we ask team members to come in once or twice per week. Remote candidates outside commutable distance may be considered on a case-by-case basis, with the expectation of occasional travel to the office. Learn more details about our work modes and workplace safety policies here.

Salary Range:

What's Next

If you're interested in joining the team at Etsy, please share your resume with us and feel free to include a cover letter if you'd like. As we hope you've seen already, Etsy is a place that values individuality and variety. We don't want you to be like everyone else -- we want you to be like you! So tell us what you're all about.

Our Promise

At Etsy, we believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace furthers relevance, resilience, and longevity. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Etsy is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion or creed, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship or immigration status, marital or familial status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status**, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law**. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the interview or hiring process, please let your recruiter know and we will work with you to meet your needs. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.