Senior ML Scientist, SMART DS

Who We Are

Wayfair is moving the world so that anyone can live in a home they love – a journey enabled by more than 3,000 Wayfair engineers and a data-centric culture. The Search, Marketing, and Recommendations technology science team (SMART) builds and owns all the Machine learning (ML) products that power all search, marketing, and recommendations technology across Wayfair. Our algorithms tackle a varied & broad spectrum of challenges in the Wayfair marketplace; from empowering suppliers to easily add products to our catalog, to enabling our customers to discover and purchase a vast & diverse assortment of home goods, to driving marketing experiences customers love all at web scale.

We are looking for an experienced machine-learning enthusiast to lead the research and development of the ML systems that power our real-time Search type-ahead, content recommendations, and algorithmic customer understanding experience teams. In this role, you are accountable for building the next generation of Wayfair’s ML stack for one of these teams. You will collaborate closely with the engineering, analytics, and product leads within our SMART team to define the technical vision and work with your leadership to build the organization and team required to execute on it. This role is a cornerstone of the Search, Marketing, and Recommendations Technology (SMART) organization, with broad visibility and close communication with leaders across the business up to Executive level.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the development of cutting-edge machine learning algorithms in Wayfair’s predictive search/type-ahead, content recommendations, or algorithmic customer understanding teams.
• Continually improve teams’ ability to build efficient machine learning models by leveraging industry best practices and set high standards for craftsmanship of the entire team.
• Mentor a team of machine learning engineers, continuously upskill them while modeling a culture of continuous research and innovation.
• Collaborate closely with the product and engineering leaders in our SMART technologies group to build a next-generation search and recommendations stack and the organization required to maintain and innovate on it
• Contribute as a senior leader beyond the SMART group, in particular within Wayfair’s broader ML community
• Be obsessed with the customer and maintain a customer-centric lens in how we frame, approach, and ultimately solve every problem we work on.

What You’ll Need

• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statics or a related field.
• 9+ years of experience in building large scale machine learning algorithms 
• 4+ years in an architect or technical leadership position 
• Strong theoretical understanding of statistical models such as regression, clustering and ML algorithms such as decision trees, neural networks, transformers and NLP techniques. 
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python or R and relevant ML libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) to develop production-grade quality product
• Ability to partner cross-functionally to own and shape technical roadmaps 
• Intellectual curiosity and a desire to always be learning!

Nice to have

• PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics or related field
• Familiarity with suggest/type-ahead systems, search and ranking, or content recommendations 
• Familiarity with Generative AI and their usage in improving search and recommender systems. 
• Familiarity with GCP (or AWS, Azure), ML model development frameworks, ML orchestration tools (Airflow, Kubeflow or MLFlow)