Senior Applied Scientist I, Market Optimization

Company Description

Etsy is a global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We design, implement, and innovate the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of consumers all over the world. As an employee of Etsy Inc., whether affiliated with Etsy, Reverb, or Depop, you will tackle distinct, significant, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, making a rewarding impact and keeping commerce human.

Job Description

What is the role?

We are seeking an Applied Machine Learning Scientist for our Marketplace Optimization team, tasked with understanding buyer shopping behaviors, long-term customer value, seller success, marketplace health, and shifts in customer interests during online shopping. As an Applied Scientist, you will collaborate closely with software engineers to create custom large-scale machine-learning models for use in production, driving customer impact. Our team is data-driven and passionate about innovation in the field of Machine Learning (ML), with interests and expertise in Ranking, Optimization, Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning, and Reinforcement Learning. Our primary goal is to apply these sophisticated techniques to improve the search experience on our platform.

This is a full-time position reporting to the Engineering Manager of Marketplace Optimization, with a base salary range of $184,000 - 216,000 USD per year. Besides the salary, you are also eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and competitive benefits that support you and your family as part of your total rewards package at Etsy. This role necessitates you to be present in Etsy’s Brooklyn office, either in-person or on flexible terms. Candidates within commutable distance of the Brooklyn Hub may be given priority. Etsy offers a variety of work modes to accommodate the needs and preferences of our team. Check out our Flex and Office-based work modes and workplace safety policies here.

What is this team like at Etsy?

The Marketplace Optimization team is part of the Search group at Etsy. We’re dedicated to refining the search ranking quality for both buyers and sellers. We work on last-pass ranking of search results, which significantly shape the overall customer search experience. The team comprises a diverse mix of machine learning engineers, applied scientists, and a product manager. We collaborate intensively with software engineers and various product and enablement teams throughout the organization to create and implement advanced machine learning algorithms to consistently deliver improved search results.

What does a typical day look like?

In Etsy, a typical day involves finding opportunities to improve buyer’s search experience, initiating and spearheading efforts to improve the ranking capabilities of Etsy’s Search engine, developing innovative ML ranking models that optimize for various business goals, planning data-driven projects, designing, implementing, optimizing, and testing new modeling improvements, and drawing conclusions from experiment results. Leading high coding and engineering standards in the team and maintaining and improving the core ML pipeline are also key parts of the role.

Qualifications

Key qualities for this role are:

You need to be a supportive coworker who takes pleasure in helping others. Having a growth mindset translates to finding joy in continuous learning and self-improvement. It’s crucial that you care about how ML impacts real individuals. The following will also be beneficial:

• 3+ years of experience in areas related to Search, Recommendation Systems, Personalization, and Applied ML.
• Proficiency in writing high-quality production code, demonstrating robust modeling, data understanding and coding skills.
• Proficiency in neural ML frameworks such as Tensorflow, PyTorch.
• Experience with web-scale data preprocessing and ML workflows such as Apache Spark, Beam, Kubeflow Pipelines etc.
• Experience with cloud computing services like Google Cloud Platform.
• A product focus for using machine learning to address real-world problems. Knowledge of various machine learning techniques and key parameters that affect their performance.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and comfort working in a remote team with Slack and Google Docs.
• Self-directed, flexible, and a strong sense of ownership.
• A history of publications in fields like information retrieval, recommendation systems, knowledge graphs, natural language processing, reinforcement learning.

Additional Information

What's Next

If you're interested in joining the team at Etsy, please share your resume with us and feel free to include a cover letter if you want. Etsy is a place that values individuality and diversity. We don't want you to be like everyone else, we want you to be like you! So share with us who you are.

Our Promise

At Etsy, we are committed to a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that f