Senior Principal Applied Scientist (All Genders)

The Discovery team at Zalando is on a mission to assist customers in their fashion discovery journey, helping them find exactly what they need. We are developing next-generation discovery systems, leveraging advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR) methods, particularly utilizing transformer-based deep neural networks and large language models (LLMs).

Role Overview

As a Senior Principal Applied Scientist, you will tackle complex fashion-related problems using state-of-the-art approaches. You will help shape our scientific roadmap and collaborate with a team of exceptional scientists and engineers to develop models and cutting-edge machine learning products that elevate the experience of over 51 million customers.

Responsibilities

Utilize your Scientific Expertise: Apply your extensive experience in researching, deploying, and architecting machine learning and deep learning solutions in NLP and IR to enhance the inspiration journey of millions of customers in large-scale projects.

Collaborate and Innovate: Work with multiple teams to build a cutting-edge science stack that aligns with product strategy. Define and uphold architectural and design principles.

Develop Long-term Research Roadmaps: Create research plans that address concrete business goals and span multiple product areas. Serve as a sparring partner and trusted advisor for Zalando’s senior leadership, advising on investments in people, strategic direction, and make-or-buy decisions.

Mentor and Share Knowledge: Act as a mentor to senior and principal scientists, actively sharing your knowledge and expertise within Zalando’s science community.

Forge Partnerships: Build close relationships with applied science leaders and product managers to deliver state-of-the-art machine learning solutions and uncover new growth opportunities.

What We Are Looking For

We are seeking candidates with a PhD in NLP, IR, machine learning, or related fields, or equivalent experience, paired with 8+ years of industry experience, particularly with deep learning-based NLP and/or IR methods.

Scientific Roadmap Leadership: Proven experience leading and shaping scientific roadmaps in products spanning multiple areas and collaborating with senior AS leaders.

Business Acumen: Ability to discover new business opportunities by collaborating with product, science, and engineering managers to solve complex business problems with scientific solutions.

Applied Machine Learning Expertise: Extensive hands-on experience in deep learning, proficient in Python and frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow. Familiarity with LLMs and cloud computing platforms like AWS is required.

Proven Track Record: Demonstrated success in using machine learning to address real-world problems throughout the product lifecycle and a strong publication record in top-tier venues like ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, SIGIR, KDD, WWW, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, JMLR, etc.

Inclusive By Design

At Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. We welcome applications from all individuals, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You can omit personal details such as pictures, age, or marital status from your application; we assess candidates solely on their qualifications and merit.

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Perks and Benefits

• Opportunity to work from abroad for 30 (working) days per calendar year
• Financial: Access to the employee shares program; 40% shopping discount on Zalando products and 30% discount on Zalando Lounge; discounts from a wide range of external partners
• SBB Half Fare Travelcard: Enjoy discounted travel
• Family: 4 weeks paid paternity leave and 17 weeks paid maternity leave; 3 fully-paid child sick days per year; free counseling and assistance services via the Fürstenberg Institute

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