Senior Applied Scientist I

Company Description
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, or Depop, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

Salary Range:

$183,000.00 - $216,000.00

What’s the role?

We are looking for a Senior Applied Scientist I to join the Search Mission Understanding team at Etsy. Our team develops custom machine-learning models that can drive product vision and customer impact. We’re a cross-functional group of applied scientists, machine learning engineers, and product managers. As an engineer on our team, you will play a major role in improving the shopping experience for millions of Etsy buyers. We are looking for individuals who are product and delivery-driven, and are passionate about using  ML to improve Etsy for both buyers and sellers.

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone interested in building state-of-the-art ML systems for a two-sided marketplace with 90+ million buyers, 6+ million sellers, and hundreds of millions of unique, handmade, vintage listings.

This is a full-time position reporting to the Engineering Manager, Search Mission Understanding. In addition to salary, you will also be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family as part of your total rewards package at Etsy. 

For this role, we are considering candidates based in the United States. Candidates living within commutable distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn Office Hub or in the San Francisco Bay Area may be the first to be considered. For candidates within commutable distance, Etsy requires in-office attendance once or twice per week depending on your proximity to the office. Etsy offers different work modes to meet the variety of needs and preferences of our team. Learn more details about our  work modes and workplace safety policies here.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

Here’s a taste of the problems we’re solving:

• How can we help buyers find the high quality and relevant products at Etsy?

• How can we help buyers when they don’t know how to describe what they’re looking for?

• How can we better understand a user's shopping mission when they come to Etsy?

• How can we help buyers to narrow down their search based on their preferences?

What does the day-to-day look like?

• You will work in a cross-functional team to prioritize projects which help achieve our product targets.

• Push the state of the art and apply the latest advances in Large Language Model and machine learning field to improve buyer experiences on Etsy.

• Prototype, optimize, and productionize large-scale ML models that help deliver key results.

• Conduct A/B experiments to validate the effectiveness of ML models and pipelines.

• 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 have experience of applying machine learning techniques in addressing real-world problems. 

• You have experience of writing training data pipelines, training and evaluating models, deploying models and monitoring production machine learning systems. 

• You have experience working with machine learning frameworks and technologies such as Tensorflow/TFX, PyTorch, Kubeflow.

• You have experience of fine-tuning and evaluating pre-trained language models, inclu