Director, Machine Learning Engineering (SDPE Group)

We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, “How did we ever live without Coupang?” Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we’re collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce. 

The SDPE (Search and Discovery Product Engineering) ML group is Coupang’s advanced machine learning team. It keeps Coupang at the forefront of machine learning technology across multiple application areas including content understanding, recommendation, ranking and more. It is a high impact applied team that works on directly bringing that technology to the product in collaboration with product engineering teams. The main contribution of the team’s work is to drive top line metrics for wowing our customers and thriving Coupang business. 

Role Overview 

We are looking for a Director of SDPE ML Group to own and drive the team’s strategy and execution to build the future e-commerce search experience. This role is a key addition to Coupang’s Search and Discovery leadership team in building and leading Coupang’s eCommerce Search and Discovery strategy and technology team into a world-class, cohesive, and innovative product search and discovery engine. 

You’ll be responsible for tech projects across search, recommendation, and catalog quality. You will drive projects related to query/intent understanding, e-commerce product knowledge graph,  personalization application, and some futuristic search experiences such as Personal Assistant, multi-modal search experiences. You will lead the team to explore green field opportunities based on Generative AI / LLMs. The scope is company-wide, with this team affecting results shown to every customer searching for products on Coupang, and this represents a unique opportunity to have scope this broad and flexible. You will hire and grow key talent to innovate in the search space to Wow the Customers. 

What You Will Do 

• Define the long-term strategy and vision of various technical directions and oversee the design in conjunction with the engineering team. 

• Manage and execute project plans and deliver commitments in both short and long term. 

• Lead your team to develop new Machine Learning models and features, applying rigorous offline and online testing methodology 

• Be responsible for the production system running those models 

Basic Qualifications 

• 3+ years management experience 

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or related science majors, Ph.D. strongly preferred 

• Track record of diving into data to discover hidden patterns and solving problems with data science 

• Deep knowledge in machine learning, deep learning, and statistical modeling 

• Excellent communicator, both to technical and business audiences 

• Fast paced self-learner with proven record of launching successful features and improving business metrics 

• Ability to work in multi-cultural, cross functional team 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Hands on experience either directly training and applying Generative AI models / LLMs or working closely with your engineering team to do so 

• Experience with advertising systems/Search advertising/Advertising Marketplace 

• Experience working with AWS (Amazon web services) 

• Experience working in startups 

Pay & Benefits    

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. At Coupang, your base pay is one part of your total compensation.  

The base pay for this position ranges from $171,000 / year in our lowest geographic market to $351,000 / year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on several factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. 

General Description of All Benefits    

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life, AD&D insurance   
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)  
• Long-term/Short-term Disability  
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) program  
• 401K Plan with Company Match  
• 18-21 days of the Paid Time Off (PTO) a year based on the tenure  
• 12 Public Holidays  
• Paid Parental leave  
• Pre-tax commuter benefits  
• MTV - [Free] Electric Car Charging Station   

General Description of Other Compensation   

 “Other Compensation” includes, but is not limited to, bonuses, equity, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their established salary range or wage scale.  

Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to actual or perceived race (including traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to hair texture and protective hair styles), color, religion, religious creed (including religious dress and grooming practices), sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ,ancestry, national origin (including language use restrictions), age (40 and over), physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C status, family status (including but not limited to marital or domestic partnership status), military or veteran status, use of a trained dog guide or service animal, political activities or affiliations, ancestry, citizenship, family and medical leave status, status as a victim of any violent crime, or any other characteristic or class protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. Coupang is also committed to providing a safe work environment for its employees and its consumers.   

If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation in the application of recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at  usrecruiting@coupang.com .   

Equal Opportunities for All

Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. Our unprecedented success could not be possible without the valuable inputs of our globally diverse team.