Machine Learning Engineer, Experimental AI Team (Staff/Senior)

We're transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

OVERVIEW

The Experimental AI team is committed to applying innovative AI technology (such as large language models and diffusion models in generative AI) to Instacart's business applications. We are establishing a machine learning foundation that is future-proof.

We are conducting research on the most recent AI technology, creating sophisticated ML tools, and incubating innovative business applications.  We are looking for machine learning engineers to advance this initiative, establish the experimental AI foundation, create innovative business applications, and serve millions of households on the Instacart Platform.

ABOUT THE JOB

As a senior/staff machine learning engineer on the General ML team

• You use your strong engineering and machine learning skills to build creative business application ideas of the latest AI technology, such as generative AI.
• You collaborate multi-functionally with other partners/teams to define objectives, suggest product ideas, and drive project execution. 
• You are responsible for the success of your projects and hold yourself accountable for each milestone's outcomes.
• You are a leader with vision in the relevant domains of expertise, a mentor to junior engineers, and a contributor to the team's growth and evolution.

ABOUT YOU

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• A graduate degree in artificial intelligence or machine learning or equivalent experience.
• Extensive experience in natural language processing, text mining, and/or generative AI.
• Comfortable learning and employing the most state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in the field.
• Strong programming skills and experience with Python, data manipulation (SQL, Spark, Pandas), and popular machine learning tools (PyTorch, Tensorflow, Scikit-learn, XGBoost, JAX), or comparable experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with works related to the large language model, autoregressive model, and/or reinforcement learning.
• Strong communication skills and previous experience leading projects with multi-functional partners.
• Experience in handling projects of significant complexity and ambiguity.
• Strong engineering background and can develop end-to-end machine learning solutions.
• Experience contributing to research communities or efforts, including publishing papers in major conferences or journals.

 

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.

For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ$174,600—$286,000 USDWA$166,500—$275,000 USDOR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI$159,300—$263,000 USDAll other states$144,900—$239,000 USD

Accommodations & Accessibility

At Instacart, we strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates. If you need assistance submitting an application through our career site due to a disability, please submit an Accommodations Request Form and someone from our team will reach out soon to see how we may be able to assist.