Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Quality

The role involves leading AI/ML solutions for Ads Quality at Instacart, focusing on designing innovative AI-powered systems, mentoring engineers, and shaping the company's engineering culture. It is a senior technical leadership position at the Director+ level, with no people management responsibilities.

Location: Remote (US)

Salary: $261,000–$330,500 USD

Responsibilities

• Develop & design innovative AI-powered systems addressing a wide range of Ads Quality challenges, such as: Optimize ads pacing/bidding, retrieval and auction processes toward a diverse set of advertiser goals, balancing short- and long-term objectives
• Balance between user, advertiser, and retailer needs, and turn such solutions into quantifiable, optimizable formulations
• Identify and build gen AI solutions to revolutionize all aspects of the quality stack
• Build advanced generative AI and recommendation frameworks revolutionizing advertiser experience and campaign efficacy
• Construct systems and frameworks to provide intelligent recommendations and assistance to advertisers
• Collaborate with Data Scientists to establish metrics and methodologies for both tracking, optimization, and goaling purposes
• Define & own the Ads Quality technical strategy and roadmap, balancing between both short-term needs and long-term sustainability
• Demonstrates ability to architect and design complex AI / quality components, considering scalability, reliability, performance, and security
• Serves as a technical leader and mentor, guiding and empowering junior ML and software engineers through code and design reviews, knowledge sharing, collaborative problem-solving, improving key engineering processes, and fostering a thriving engineering culture
• Serve as a technical mentor, empowering engineers at all career levels through effective coaching, collaborative code reviews and knowledge sharing to develop the next set of leaders
• Builds and maintains synergies with other ML engineering teams across Instacart; acts as a bridge representing Ads as an influential voice in company-wide technical forums
• Contributes to company-level technical initiatives as a thought leader and key driver of Instacart’s engineering vision & goals
• Note this is a hands-on IC / TL role at the Director+ level. There are no people management expectations.

Requirements

• PhD in AI / ML or related field, or equivalent academic and research experience.
• 10+ years of experience as a software and / or ML engineer.
• Proven track record of architecting & building production-grade ML systems, AI and quantitative optimization technologies at a global scale.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical discussions and collaborate effectively at senior to executive levels, driving consensus and clarity.
• Experience mentoring and developing engineering culture and talent.

Benefits

• 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.