Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Generative AI)

TL;DR

Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Generative AI): Leading the vision and roadmap for generative recommendations by integrating advanced generative models into large-scale recommendation systems to elevate content discovery and personalization. Focus on designing, building, and scaling generative modeling and the next generation of the ranking stack to improve user engagement across the platform.

Location: Onsite in Bellevue, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, San Francisco, or Seattle, USA. Expected to work in office 4+ days per week.

Salary: $276,000–$414,000 annually (USD)

Company

Snap Inc. is a technology company focused on improving communication and self-expression through products like hirify.global, Lens Studio, and Spectacles.

What you will do

• Lead the vision and roadmap for generative recommendations by incorporating advanced generative models.
• Design, build, and scale generative modeling and the next generation of the ranking stack.
• Develop and apply state-of-the-art multimodal generative models to enhance user and content understanding.
• Drive innovation across Snap’s content ecosystem by applying generative AI to improve recommendation quality.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to align on ML strategy and ensure technical investments.
• Advance the ML tech stack for recommendations, improving scalability, efficiency, and reliability.

Requirements

• BS in technical field such as computer science, mathematics, statistics or equivalent years of experience
• 9+ years of post-Bachelor’s machine learning experience (or Master's + 8 years, or PhD + 5 years)
• 2+ years of technical leadership or domain-expert experience
• Deep understanding of generative architectures (e.g., transformers, foundational LLM or VLMs, auto-regressive decoders) and experience applying them to production systems.
• Strong foundation in machine learning, deep learning, and large-scale recommendation/ranking systems.
• Ability to design, train, deploy, and optimize state-of-the-art machine learning models for performance and scale.

Nice to have

• Advanced degree in machine learning, computer vision, or mathematics.
• Experience with large-scale recommendation/ranking systems, multimodal modeling, or retrieval architectures.
• Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or related deep learning frameworks.
• Background in integrating generative models into production pipelines.

Culture & Benefits

• "Default Together" policy with 4+ days per week in office for dynamic collaboration.
• Comprehensive medical coverage, including emotional and mental health support programs.
• Paid parental leave.
• Compensation packages that include equity in the form of RSUs.
• Commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging.