Staff ML Engineer

About the Team

Grindr is an AI-native platform powering how millions of gay people connect globally. With 15M+ monthly users, 130B+ annual messages, and a team of fewer than 200, we move fast, stay lean, and tackle technical problems at a scale few companies ever see. At Grindr, we’re at the dawn of an AI-driven evolution, and you’ll be a key player helping to shape it. This is your chance to harness cutting-edge machine learning to redefine how millions of people in the LGBTQ+ community around the world connect—whether it’s an entertaining chat, a casual encounter, or a long-term relationship.

We’re doubling down on ML as the future of Grindr, and in these early days, your work will leave a mark on a one-of-a-kind platform at global scale.

• Early-Stage Impact: It's still early days for ML at Grindr, so you'll be joining a focused team surrounded by high-impact, greenfield work, setting the stage for our long-term ML strategy.
• Recommendations That Reshape: Build systems that match millions to their next big moment, adapting to a range of intents with impact you can feel.
• Conversations That Connect: Use LLMs to uncover insights and help users find their spark with precision and flair.

At Grindr, we operate in Grindr Mode: moderately hardcore day-to-day, truly hardcore when it counts. It’s about doing great work without burning out. Outcomes over outputs. Smart, driven people who raise your bar, with room to live full lives. This is a hybrid role based in our San Francisco or Palo Alto offices (Palo Alto preferred) and will require you to be in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Responsibilities

• Architect scalable recommendation systems to serve millions, balancing performance and innovation.
• Leverage the latest LLMs to process vast conversation data and enhance user connections.
• Prototype, iterate, and ship production-ready ML solutions that solve real problems for our users.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, data science, and product teams to turn bold ideas into tangible results.
• Drive the exploration of emerging AI tools and techniques to keep Grindr’s tech stack ahead of the curve.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience building ML systems with a focus on 0-to-1 system development and creating new capabilities from scratch.
• Experience with recommendation systems or similar is a plus.
• Proven ability to deliver at scale, with fluency in Python and popular ML frameworks.
• A scrappy mindset—you tackle messy challenges head-on and get real results.
• Experience using data and deployment technologies (Snowflake, Airflow, Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Spark, PySpark).
• Experience building machine/deep learning models with at least one common framework such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Keras.
• Experience with any public cloud environment—AWS, GCP, or Databricks.

Skills

• Expertise in building and maintaining LLM workflows for nuanced, human-driven tasks.
• A track record of crafting recommendation systems that hit the mark for diverse user needs.
• Thrives in a fast-paced, outcome-driven environment with lots of cross-functional collaboration.
• A proven history of taking product ownership and thoughtfully addressing the unique needs of a specific user group, from early-stage concept to full-scale rollout.

Benefits

• Health, Dental & Vision: Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.
• Family Formation: Up to $300,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting.
• Compensation: Industry-competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee.
• Gender-Affirming Care: Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.
• Time Off & Rest: Flexible vacation policy. Two company-wide rest weeks per year.
• Other Benefits: Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, plus breakfast/lunch.