5+ years of industry experience in building and deploying Machine Learning systems at scale.
Successful leadership in delivering end-to-end ML projects with measurable business impacts.
Deep understanding of personalization, ranking, or user modeling; strong intuition regarding consumer product user behavior.
Advanced skills in Python, SQL, and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, XGBoost).
Proven communication and leadership abilities; capable of influencing cross-functional teams.
Responsibilities
Lead the development and deployment of ML models for user acquisition, activation, and retention.
Manage the full model lifecycle from data collection to online experimentation.
Identify high-impact opportunities for machine learning to unlock growth through collaboration with stakeholders.
Establish ML best practices and drive technical excellence within the Buyer Growth team.
Benefits
Flexible Time Off Policy and company-wide holidays including spring and winter breaks.
Comprehensive health insurance options (Medical, Dental, Vision).
Support for remote work with home office setup and monthly allowances for cell phone and internet.
Generous care benefits including wellness allowances and family planning support.
Retirement plans including 401k with employer match and international pension plans.
Monthly budget to use and understand the product as a buyer and seller.
16 weeks of paid parental leave with a gradual return to work policy.
Full Job Description
Role
The Buyer Growth team is responsible for driving Whatnot's top-of-funnel growth and first-time buyer success. We're looking for a Machine Learning Engineer to accelerate buyer growth at Whatnot through intelligent, data-driven experiences. As the first ML engineer, you'll build and own ML models personalization in onboarding and user targeting in our acquisition and engagement channels. This is a high-impact role on a team directly responsible for growing Whatnot's buyer base and improving first-time user conversion. What you'll do:
Lead the design, development, and productionization of ML models that power user acquisition, activation, and retention (e.g., ranking models, targeting systems, uplift modeling).
Own the full model lifecycle: from data collection and feature engineering to model training, evaluation, deployment, and online experimentation.
Identify and prioritize high-impact opportunities where machine learning can unlock growth, collaborating with product, engineering, data, and marketing stakeholders.
Drive technical excellence and establish ML best practices across the Buyer Growth team.
You
Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We've found that low ego, a growth mindset, and leaning into action and high impact goes a long way here.
5+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML systems at scale.
Demonstrated success in leading end-to-end ML projects that drove measurable business outcomes.
Deep expertise in personalization, ranking, or user modeling; strong intuition around user behavior in consumer products.
Advanced proficiency in Python, SQL, and common ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, XGBoost).
Strong communication and leadership skills; ability to influence roadmap and align cross-functional teams.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience building ML applications in E-commerce or Social products
Prior experience in growth domains: user segmentation, retention modeling, large scale recommendation systems, notification ranking, etc.
Benefits
Flexible Time off Policy and Company-wide Holidays (including a spring and winter break)
Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
Work From Home Support
Home office setup allowance
Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
Care benefits
Monthly allowance for wellness
Annual allowance towards Childcare
Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).
Parental Leave
16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.
