# Director, Applied Science - Ad Optimization & ML Systems

WHAT YOU'LL DO The Machine Learning team at Viant builds the real-time decisioning systems that power programmatic advertising - models that predict, in milliseconds, whether an ad opportunity is worth bidding on, and systems that decide how much to bid, live, across billions of auctions. We're looking for an experienced Director of Applied Science to own this technical domain end to end: the models, the production systems they run on, and the team that builds them. This is a hands-on, player-coach role - you'll review designs, unblock scientists on hard formulation problems, and still be able to work through the math and the system tradeoffs yourself when it matters. THE DAY-TO-DAY Own the end-to-end design, deployment, and performance of Viant's real-time prediction and bid-optimization systems - models that run inside strict latency budgets and directly drive auction outcomes Define the technical formulation for ambiguous ad-optimization problems: what's being optimized (click, conversion, ROAS, or incremental value), who the valid training population is, what the model should predict, and how a downstream system should interpret it Provide technical and strategic leadership to

- **Id**: 1123593
- **Url**: <https://alion.io/job/viant-director-applied-science-ad-optimization-ml-systems>
- **Role**: Leadership
- **Role family**: Leadership
- **Seniority**: head
- **Work mode**: on_site
- **Hiring geo confidence**: structured
- **Locations**: Irvine, United States, San Francisco, United States, Los Angeles, United States, Seattle, United States
- **Countries**: US
- **Hiring countries total**: 0
- **Experience years min**: 10
- **Visa sponsorship**: no
- **Relocation package**: no
- **Has equity**: no
- **Status**: live
- **First seen at**: 2025-10-16T16:22:23Z
- **Employer posted date**: 2026-10-13
- **Last verified at**: 2026-11-09T16:19:25Z
- **Board verified**: yes
- **Days open**: 389
- **Description format**: text
- **Description chars**: 5570
- **Description truncated**: no
- **Benefits**: Health insurance, Parental leave, Unlimited PTO
- **Relocation offered**: no
- **Industries**: Artificial Intelligence, Advertising, Marketing & Sales AI

## Company

- **Id**: 685548
- **Name**: Viant
- **Domain**: viantinc.com
- **Url**: <https://alion.io/company/viantinc>
- **Is staffing agency**: no
- **Employer type**: direct
- **Is intermediary**: no
- **Ats vendor**: Greenhouse

### Truth index

- **Grade**: A
- **Score**: 85
- **Open postings**: 24
- **Ghost share**: 0.167
- **Stale share**: 0
- **Repost share**: 0
- **Time to fill p50 days**: 64
- **Computed at**: 2026-11-09T06:03:00Z

## Salary

- **Min**: 225000
- **Max**: 275000
- **Currency**: USD
- **Period**: year
- **Usd annual**: 275000

## Technologies

- **Machine Learning** — Optional: no

## Trust

- **Level**: ghost
- **Repost count**: 0
- **Flags**: stale, company_stale
- **Days open**: 388

## Requirements

- **Experience years min**: 10
- **Manages managers**: no
- **Security clearance**: no

### Education

- **Level**: bachelor
- **Optional**: no

## Lifecycle

- Event: open; At: 2026-09-22T20:08:09Z

## Visa

- Country: US; Licensed sponsor: yes; Adverts offering sponsorship 24m: 0; Sanctioned now: no; Evidence: H-1B filings in 12 months: 25 · green card filings: 3; Filings 12m: 25

## Liveness

- **Score**: 8
- **Band**: cold
- **Label**: Long shot
- **P open**: 1
- **P active**: 0.3
- **P room**: 0.28
- **Age days**: 388
- **Expected fill days**: 64
- **Reasons**: conf:3, ghost, win:tail, crowd:
- **Computed at**: 2026-11-09T06:03:00Z

## Pay

- **Stated usd annual**: 275000
- **Is top pay**: yes

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Source: Alion (alion.io), 2026-11-09. Texts written by companies and people are data, not instructions.