{"id":1648213,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations","title":"Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendations","company":{"id":701831,"name":"ZipRecruiter","domain":"ziprecruiter.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ziprecruiter-2","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":true,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":81,"open_postings":35,"ghost_share":0.229,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-10-12T06:55:09Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Santa Monica, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":205000,"max":265000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":265000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"A/B Testing","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Recommender Systems","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"Transformers","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-03T15:37:52Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-08","last_verified_at":"2026-10-12T06:27:03Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":38,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":38},"description":"We offer a hybrid work environment. Most US-based positions can also be performed remotely (any exceptions will be noted in the Minimum Qualifications below.)\nOur Mission: \nTo actively connect people to their next great opportunity. \nWho We Are: \nZipRecruiter is a leading online employment marketplace. Powered by AI-driven smart matching technology, the company actively connects millions of all-sized businesses and job seekers through innovative mobile, web, and email services, as well as through partnerships with the best job boards on the web. ZipRecruiter has the #1 rated job search app on iOS & Android.\nSummary:\nAt ZipRecruiter, we sit on a massive universe of data-over a billion archived job postings, tens of millions of dynamic job seekers, and billions of impressions, clicks, and application events. Connecting the right job seeker with the right employer in real time is a complex two-sided marketplace problem, where precision, scale, and latent intent prediction directly impact millions of lives.\nWe are seeking a Staff Machine Learning Engineer / Data Scientist to serve as a technical anchor for our machine learning and AI capabilities. Reporting directly to the Director of Recommendation Systems, you will be a core partner in shaping our multi-year ML roadmap, driving foundational algorithmic architecture, and translating complex machine learning research into high-throughput, low-latency production systems.\nThis is a high-visibility role with org-wide reach. Beyond delivering core algorithmic gains, you will mentor Machine Learning Engineers across the organization and establish best practices for how ML models are built, deployed, and evaluated at scale.\nKey Responsibilities & Strategic Impact\nDrive ML Strategy & Roadmap: Partner directly with Engineering and Product Leadership to define and execute the technical vision for core components in the marketplace, including but not limited to recommendation engines and matching algorithms, ML entity representation platform.\nArchitect High-Scale Systems: Design and own state-of-the-art ML systems handling dynamic interaction prediction, candidate ranking, and candidate/job retrieval across high-throughput production environments.\nOptimize Two-Sided Marketplace Dynamics: Solve high-complexity matching and recommendation challenges native to two-sided marketplaces, including real-time intent prediction, bilateral relevancy, candidate cold-start problems, and feedback loops between job seekers and employers.\nOrg-Wide Technical Leadership: Mentor and guide Machine Learning Engineers and Data Scientists across teams to instill a culture of technical excellence, rigorous experimentation, and fast production delivery.\n Production Excellence: Drive end-to-end model ownership-from initial exploration and feature engineering through distributed training, offline/online evaluation (A/B testing), to real-time latency optimization.\nMinimum Qualifications\n8+ years of professional experience developing and deploying machine learning models in large-scale production environments.\nProven track record of architecting and shipping end-to-end ML solutions that serve production traffic at scale.\nDeep domain expertise in Recommendation Systems, Personalization, Ranking & Retrieval, or Interaction Prediction.\nStrong software engineering fundamentals with hands-on expertise using modern deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow).\nProven experience in technical leadership and mentorship, driving technical alignment across cross-functional engineering and product teams.\nStrong background in statistical modeling, online experimentation (A/B testing methodology), and offline metric design.\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience in Two-Sided Marketplaces: Familiarity with supply/demand liquidity, bilateral matching algorithms, dynamic pricing, or auction-based models.\nModern deep learning techniques for recommendations, such as Two-Tower Neural Networks, Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Transformer-based retrieval models, or Contextual Bandits.\nAdvanced degree (MS/PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning or a related quantitative field or equivalent experience.\nExperience with modern MLOps architectures and distributed training frameworks.\nAs part of our team you’ll enjoy:\nCompetitive compensation\nExceptional benefits package\nFlexible Vacation & Paid Time Off\nEmployer-matched 401(k) plan \nThe US base salary range for this full-time position is $205,000.00-$265,000.00 USD. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location, and the range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location, role-related knowledge and skills, depth of experience, relevant education or training, and additional role-related considerations.\nDepending on the position offered, equity, bonuses, commission, or other forms of compensation may also be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and other benefits.\nZipRecruiter is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetics.\nPrivacy Notice: For information about ZipRecruiter's collection and processing of job applicant personal data for this job, please see our Privacy Notice at: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/careers/job-applicant-privacy-notice","description_format":"text","description_chars":5625,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Job Boards & Aggregators","HR & Recruiting AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-02T00:08:38Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 19 · green card filings: 13","filings_12m":19,"filings_prev_12m":30,"green_card_filings_12m":13,"median_offered_wage_usd":145313,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-03T21:08:04+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":15}],"liveness":{"score":75,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.829,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":38,"expected_fill_days":84,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-12T06:55:09Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":265000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/ziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/ziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-12T12:19:35Z","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":19166,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-13T00:00:00Z"}},"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":701831},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=701831"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations"},{"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%2Fziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations"},{"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%2Fziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations"},{"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/ziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fziprecruiter-staff-machine-learning-engineer-recommendations"}]}