Parspec

Staff Engineer – Applied ML, Search & Recommendations

Parspec

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Hybrid

Location: San MateoCaliforniaUnited States

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Salary

💰 $220,000 - $280,000 per year

Job Level

About the role

  • Own the architecture for our hybrid search engine, blending keyword-based retrieval with dense vector embeddings to improve precision and recall.
  • Design and scale personalization algorithms that suggest products based on project specs, historical data, and cross-catalog compatibility.
  • Lead the fine-tuning of open-source and proprietary LLMs/encoders for specialized construction domain tasks, including NER and relationship extraction from complex documents.
  • Architect and optimize our vector database strategy for high-concurrency retrieval and low-latency ranking.
  • Work closely with product managers, UX designers, and business leadership to integrate AI components into fully functional systems.
  • Participate in the complete product lifecycle from concept design to development, testing, and deployment.
  • Build products that handle large data volumes efficiently while remaining highly scalable for new clients.
  • Design end-to-end data and ML pipelines for seamless production integration and monitoring.
  • Work with the leadership team on research efforts to explore cutting-edge technologies.
  • Uphold a culture of excellence by maintaining high standards in code quality, innovation, and rigorous experimentation.

Requirements

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (PhD preferred) in Science or Engineering with strong programming and analytical skills.
  • Deep conceptual understanding and hands-on experience in Search, Ranking, Recommendation systems, or NLP/Document Extraction.
  • Expertise in Python (NumPy, scikit-learn, pandas) and training deep learning models using PyTorch or TensorFlow.
  • Ability to drive high standards for clean, efficient, and bug-free code.
  • Deep experience with Learning to Rank (LTR), BM25, and hybrid retrieval strategies.
  • Hands-on experience with Vector Databases (Pinecone, Qdrant, Milvus) and optimizing embedding spaces for domain-specific retrieval.
  • Expertise in fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) and Bi-Encoders/Cross-Encoders for specialized semantic search.
  • Experience building evaluation frameworks for search (nDCG, MRR) and managing the lifecycle of embedding deployments.
  • Hands-on experience with agentic frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, or CrewAI) for building complex, multi-step reasoning chains.
  • A track record of publications in top-tier conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, SIGIR, KDD, ACL) or significant contributions to open-source ML projects.
Benefits
  • Competitive salary and discretionary bonus, plus equity options.
  • Unlimited PTO policy
  • Medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • Flexible hybrid work environment
  • Regular team offsites and a budget for professional development
Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools
PythonNumPyscikit-learnpandasPyTorchTensorFlowLearning to RankBM25NLPDocument Extraction
Soft Skills
analytical skillsleadershipcommunicationcollaborationinnovationcode qualityproblem-solvingresearchhigh standardsrigorous experimentation