Staff Machine Learning Scientist – Personalization (Open to Remote)

About Our Client

The organization operates within the publishing industry, focusing on adult and children's books across multiple regions including North America and the United Kingdom. It manages a broad portfolio of nearly 300 publishing brands and imprints, producing a wide range of titles in various genres and subjects. The organization addresses the challenge of connecting readers with quality literature through comprehensive editorial, design, marketing, publicity, sales, production, and distribution processes.

About the Opportunity

The Staff Machine Learning Scientist – Personalization is responsible for leading and advancing the development of personalization products, including recommender systems, across digital platforms such as websites, email programs, and online marketing. This role is critical in enhancing how readers discover books, directly impacting customer engagement and business outcomes. The position involves end-to-end ownership of personalization systems from development to deployment and monitoring, collaborating closely with business stakeholders, engineers, and the personalization team.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical roadmap for personalization and recommender systems aligned with business goals.
• Lead research and development initiatives influencing multiple projects and long-term deliverables.
• Design and develop scalable and maintainable software supporting multiple teams.
• Ensure personalization products meet service level agreements and adapt to changing business needs.
• Establish and enforce experimentation best practices, including A/B testing and evaluation methodologies.
• Lead team meetings and make technical decisions to advance projects.
• Manage stakeholder expectations and communicate progress to senior leadership.
• Implement new technologies and processes to improve organizational efficiency and impact.
• Mentor senior and mid-level scientists and promote high code quality standards.
• Stay updated on advances in recommender systems and related AI technologies, integrating improvements when beneficial.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Engineering, Operations Research, Statistics, or a related field, or a Master's degree with 8+ years of applied machine learning experience.
• Deep expertise in recommender systems, personalization, ranking/retrieval, or computational advertising with experience deploying systems at scale.
• Expert proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch or TensorFlow), and recommendation-specific tools.
• Experience with cloud-based ML infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes, Databricks), containerization, and low-latency model serving.
• Advanced SQL skills and experience designing large-scale data pipelines and feature stores.
• Prominent ability to define technical roadmaps and make lasting architectural decisions.
• Strong communication skills for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Commitment to employing cutting-edge AI tools for robust software development.
• Preferred: Experience with real-time recommendation services, A/B testing and causal inference, LLM-based recommendation approaches, MLOps practices, and technical leadership of ML teams.

Pay Range and Compensation Package

The pay range and compensation package for this role will be determined based on the candidate’s experience, skills, and other relevant factors.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Our client is an equal opportunity employer. They celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or national origin.