Join Instacart: Transforming the Grocery Industry

At Instacart, we believe in sharing love through food. Our mission is to ensure everyone has access to their favorite foods and more time to savor them together. While others see grocery delivery as a simple necessity, we see a world of exciting complexities and opportunities to serve our diverse community needs. We deliver an essential service that millions rely on for groceries and household goods, while also providing safe and flexible earning opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions, and we’re expanding our team to keep pushing our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come and join our table!

Experience Flexibility with Instacart

At Instacart, we embrace a Flex First approach. We understand there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for doing your best work. Employees have the flexibility to choose where they work best—whether from home, an office, or a favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and fostering community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible work culture.

About the Role: Machine Learning Engineer II, Ads Marketplace

As a Machine Learning Engineer at Instacart, you will collaborate closely with senior engineers and product leaders. Together, you'll enhance Instacart's ads systems through innovative machine learning solutions. Your focus will be on refining areas such as ads selection, ranking, auction, and pricing across all of Instacart’s consumer-facing pages, including Search, storefront, aisle, pre- and post-checkout experiences, and more. You will actively participate in initiatives from the initial concept through prototyping, experimentation, and final implementation.

About the Team: Ads Marketplace

The Ads Marketplace team is dedicated to displaying the right ad to the right user at the right time, balancing user value, advertiser value, and Instacart revenue. We optimize a multi-sided marketplace to ensure customers discover new products/brands, advertisers achieve a good return on investment, and Instacart generates deserved revenue. Our team tackles complex problems in diverse areas such as ranking, pricing, personalization, auction, UX, and high throughput systems with dynamic data.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy machine learning solutions to tackle practical challenges in the ads organization.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, and backend engineers to deeply understand business needs and create impactful ML applications.
• Actively engage with diverse stakeholders to ensure that solutions are well-integrated and aligned with business goals.
• Continuously refine and advance our algorithms and models to push operational efficiency.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• Graduate degree (Master's or PhD) in artificial intelligence, machine learning, operations research, or equivalent self-study and experience.
• Strong programming skills in Python and fluency in data manipulation tools (SQL, Pandas) and Machine Learning tools (scikit-learn, XGBoost, Keras/Tensorflow).
• Excellent analytical skills and problem-solving abilities.
• Strong communicator with the ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders across all levels.

Preferred Qualifications

• 1-2 years of industry experience using machine learning to solve real-world problems with large datasets.
• Knowledge of deep learning frameworks and methodologies.
• Experience in applying machine learning and optimization techniques to solve marketplace challenges.

Company: Instacart

Position: Machine Learning Engineer II, Ads Marketplace