Machine Learning Scientist III - Recommendations

About the role

We are looking for an experienced Machine Learning Scientist III to join our content recommendations team. In this role, you will be at the core of building and optimizing ML-based recommender systems (e.g., image and content recommendations, homepage and email optimization and personalization) to enhance the customer experience at Wayfair. Your work will directly impact how millions of customers discover and engage with products, driving significant business value.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize recommendation models that power personalized experiences across Wayfair’s site, app, email, and push notifications.
• Conduct applied research to improve recommender systems using traditional ML techniques, deep learning and reinforcement learning.
• Build scalable ML pipelines for training, evaluation, and inference, ensuring models operate efficiently in production.
• Work closely with engineering teams to deploy models in a production environment, addressing real-world constraints such as latency, interpretability, and scalability.
• Analyze model performance and iterate based on A/B test results, offline evaluation metrics, and business impact.
• Leverage and contribute to open-source ML frameworks while staying up to date with cutting-edge research in recommendation systems.
• Drive innovation by identifying opportunities to improve personalization strategies and developing novel algorithms that enhance customer engagement.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product managers, software engineers, and data scientists to align ML objectives with business goals.
• Mentor other less experienced scientists on the team

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience developing and deploying machine learning models, with a focus on recommendations, ranking, or personalization.
• Strong theoretical understanding of machine learning and deep learning applied to large-scale recommendation problems.
• Experience in training, evaluating, and optimizing recommendation models in production, leveraging techniques such as collaborative filtering, sequence modeling, representation learning and multi-armed bandits.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Scikit-Learn.
• Familiarity with big data processing (Spark, Hadoop) and ML pipeline orchestration (Airflow, Kubeflow, MLflow).
• Strong coding skills and familiarity with building scalable ML systems in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Able to design experiments and analyze results using A/B testing and statistical techniques.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex ML concepts to non-technical stakeholders and drive data-driven decisions.

Qualifications

• Nice to have: Experience developing core recommendation systems for eCommerce, marketplaces, or streaming platforms; Familiarity with reinforcement learning or contextual bandits for adaptive recommendation strategies.

Skills

• Experience with machine learning and deep learning applied to large-scale recommendation problems.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Scikit-Learn.
• Familiarity with big data processing (Spark, Hadoop) and ML pipeline orchestration (Airflow, Kubeflow, MLflow).
• Strong coding skills and familiarity with building scalable ML systems in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Able to design experiments and analyze results using A/B testing and statistical techniques.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex ML concepts to non-technical stakeholders and drive data-driven decisions.

Benefits

Annual Base Pay: USD 207,900.00 - USD 219,450.00

The above base pay range may vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills and experience. The range listed is just one component of Wayfair’s total compensation package for employees. Depending on the position offered, equity, bonuses, commissions and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a comprehensive suite of medical, financial and additional benefits.

Pay

Salary Range: $207,900 - $219,450 per year. Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the annual base salary only and do not include equity.

Schedule

All Mountain View-based interns, co-ops, and corporate employees will be in office in a hybrid capacity. Employees will work in the office on designated days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and work remotely the other 2 days of the week.