Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Tumblr Core Data Science

Tumblr launched in 2007 with the belief that people need a place to say what they want, be who they want, and connect over their interests. We continue to build Tumblr as a platform for free expression, individuality, and human connection. 

We are looking for an experienced candidate to join our Tumblr Core Data Science (CDS) team. You will contribute to building Tumblr’s recommender systems, content discovery feeds,  targeted push notifications, user-interest profiling and computational advertisement. Your goal will be to design, develop and maintain large-scale machine learning systems, including algorithms, data pipelines and backend services to connect users with the content they love. 

We build on top of open source big data frameworks such as Apache Spark (batch processing) and Apache Flink (real-time processing), orchestrated by Kubernetes, Apache Airflow and with a PHP backend layer.

We’re big enough to give you the resources you need and still small enough that your engineering contributions will have an outsize platform impact. 

Here’s what you’ll be doing: 

• Apply information retrieval and machine learning techniques to improve personalization, recommender systems and content discovery feeds. 
• Design and develop effective models, features and algorithms involving business problems like understanding user activities and interests, blogs and posts, and constructing social graphs
• Define metrics, conduct A/B tests, and oversee statistical measurement of new features and algorithms. 

This position might be a good fit if you have:

• BA/BS degree in Computer Science or a related quantitative field. 
• Strong background in analytics, statistics, AB testing, machine learning, mining massive datasets.  
• At least 4 years of industry experience, with a proven track of successes in solving real-world problems in production on large-scale data sets.
• Solid experience in software engineering, expert in at least one among the following programming languages: Scala, Java, Python.
• Hands-on experience with data processing frameworks such as Apache Spark and Apache Flink.
• You are goal driven, humble, and have equal willingness to learn and teach. 

Some additional nice to have skills are:

• Previous experience in PHP, Ruby, or similar with respect to backend web frameworks
• Master or PHD in computer science or related quantitative field.
• Previous work with social networks.
• Previous experience with recommender systems.
• Kubernetes and MLOps experience for model deployment.

Tools we use 

• Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Flink 
• Jupyter Notebooks, Hive
• MySQL, Memcached, Redis 
• Airflow, Kubernetes
• Druid, Looker, Pivot dashboards
• GitHub, Jira

ABOUT AUTOMATTIC

We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, VaultPress, Akismet, Gravatar, Crowdsignal, Cloudup, and more. We believe in making the web a better place.

We’re a distributed company with more than 1800 Automatticians in 65+ countries speaking 90+ different languages. Our common goal is to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

We believe in Open Source and the vast majority of our work is available under the GPL.

Diversity & Inclusion at Automattic

We’re improving diversity in the tech industry. At Automattic, we want people to love their work and show respect and empathy to all. We welcome differences and strive to increase participation from traditionally underrepresented groups. Our D&I committee involves Automatticians across the company and drives grassroots change. For example, this group has helped facilitate private online spaces for affiliated Automatticians to gather and helps run a monthly D&I People Lab series for further learning. Diversity and Inclusion is a priority at Automattic, though our dedication influences far more than just Automatticians: We make our products freely available and translate our products into and offer customer support in numerous languages. We require unconscious bias training for our hiring teams and ensure our products are accessible across different bandwidths and devices. Read more about our dedication to diversity and inclusion.

HOW TO APPLY

Does this sound interesting? If yes, please send a short email to jobs@automattic.com telling us about yourself and attach a résumé as a PDF. Let us know in a cover letter about your values and experience, what you’re passionate about and why you’d like to join Tumblr!. Include the title of the position you’re applying for and your name in the subject.

Proofread! Make sure you spell and capitalize WordPress and Automattic correctly. We are lucky to receive hundreds of applications for every position, so try to make your application stand out. If you apply for multiple positions or send multiple emails there will be one reply.

If you’re reading this on a site other than automattic.com please ensure you visit automattic.com/work-with-us for the latest details on applying.

What to Expect

We know applying to jobs can be stressful and we want to ease the stress by giving clear expectations up front about what to expect from our process. We’ve outlined everything you need to know here including all of the steps in the process as well as how we approach hiring. We’re always iterating so if you happen to join us in the process, please feel free to offer feedback on what else we can include there!

About Automattic

We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Simplenote, Jetpack, Longreads, Day One, PocketCasts, and more. We believe in making the web a better place.

We’re a distributed company with more than 1800 Automatticians in [automattic-country-count] countries speaking 90+ different languages. We democratize publishing and commerce so anyone with a story can tell it, and anyone with a product can sell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or country.

We believe in Open Source and the vast majority of our work is available under the GPL.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Automattic

We’re improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech industry. At Automattic, we want people to love their work and show respect and empathy to all. We welcome differences and strive to increase participation from traditionally underrepresented groups. Our DEI committee involves Automatticians across the company and drives grassroots change. For example, this group has helped facilitate private online spaces for affiliated Automatticians to gather and helps run a monthly DEI People Lab series for further learning. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a priority at Automattic, though our dedication influences far more than just Automatticians: We make our products freely available and translate our products into and offer customer support in numerous languages. We require unconscious bias training for our hiring teams and ensure our products are accessible across different bandwidths and devices. Learn more about our dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion and our Employee Resource Groups.