Applied Machine Learning Manager – Reverb

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy Inc. employee – whether a team member of Etsy, Reverb, Depop, or Elo7 – you’ll tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

What’s the role?

Etsy is looking for an engineering manager who can lead a team of Applied Scientists and ML Engineers in Search to drive the machine learning strategy for Etsy’s Search Ranking team, with a focus on Learning-to-Rank, personalization and deep learning approaches. You will lead a team with the mission to build customized machine learning applications to drive innovation and optimize business values for the Etsy marketplace in production. To learn more about Machine Learning and Engineering at Etsy, check out https://dsml.etsy.com and https://codeascraft.com/

For this role, we are considering candidates based in the United States who are either remote, flex, or office-based. Etsy offers different work modes to meet the variety of needs and preferences of our team. Learn more about our flexible work options and vaccination policy here.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship in search ranking, relevance and personalization algorithms.
• Communicate to executives and product/engineering leaders; drive the strategy of ML innovation.
• Lead technical discussions, be a domain expert and have strategic influence.
• Define the roadmap and supervise its execution.
• Cultivate a strong applied science and engineering culture, responsible for delivering business results.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Increase conversion rate and gross merchandise sales through personalization and ranking algorithms with quality signals, and improve personalized buyer experience and buyer confidence such that they would revisit or re-purchase again.
• Develop embeddings to collect salient signals of our search queries, users, and listings, including aspects like content, budget, preferences and buyer promising signals. Incorporate them in search ranking algorithms to improve relevance and personalization in search results shown on the top search pages.
• Implement and compare supervised learning models (LR, GBDT, and DNNs), or ensembles of models, to improve key business metrics, often with multiple complicated objectives.
• Develop models with custom architecture or objective functions that target Etsy-specific problems, such as revenue optimization, seller fairness, seasonality, etc.
• Devise offline simulations and robust metrics to improve offline-online correlation and increase hit rate.
• Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require! You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time at Etsy’s discretion, or otherwise applicable with local law.

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

• You are an experienced leader who brings both technical acuity and leadership skills to build an impactful applied science and machine learning team with product delivery focus.
• You work effectively on multi-functional teams with leaders in different subject areas (product, science, experimentation and engineering) are are able to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical individuals about deeply technical products.
• You keep learning and always seek to improve yourself. You are curious about new opportunities and act to explore them.
• You are familiar with trending and innovative technology in information retrieval, search and recommendation, personalization, and machine learning.

• 2+ years of experience in leading applied science or machine learning engineering teams with a track record of attracting high-caliber engineers, and scientists.
• Solid understanding of state-of-the-art machine learning and ranking or optimization techniques. Strong plus with 2+ publications at premier conferences, such as WWW, WSDM, KDD, or SIGIR.
• Experience in delivering ML into production using publicly available technologies. Track record of building a large-scale search, recommendation, personalization, advertisement or ecommerce experience is a strong plus.
• M.S. in Computer Science or related engineering/quantitative fields or equivalent.

What’s NextIf 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’d like. As we hope you’ve seen already, Etsy is a place that values individuality and variety. We don’t want you to be like everyone else — we want you to be like you! So tell us what you’re all about.

Our PromiseAt Etsy, we believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace furthers relevance, resilience, and longevity. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Etsy is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the interview process, please let your recruiter know. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.

For U.S. roles only:Many Etsy roles are open to remote candidates, and you’ll be able to identify which ones within the location header of each job description. We’re open to remote hires from all U.S. states except Hawaii and Alaska. For candidates who will work remotely from Colorado, visit this link for information related to Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act.