Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Content ML

Snap Inc.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer leading the vision for Snap's recommendation systems. Collaborating with teams to design and scale advanced machine learning solutions.

Posted 5/31/2026full-timeLos Angeles • California, New York, Washington • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $276,000 - $414,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Lead the vision and roadmap for Snap’s large-scale recommendation systems, elevating content discovery and personalization across Spotlight, Discover, and Friend Stories.
Technically lead a group of talented engineers from Content ML and Platform teams to operate and scale the existing recommender system.
Work with cross-team ML, Infra, and Research partners to design the next-gen recommender system and incorporate SOTA industry research in recommendation systems, foundation models, multimodal signal understanding, deep user understanding, and related areas.
Partner with engineers, product managers, research scientists, data science, and leadership to align on ML strategy and ensure technical investments support long-term company priorities.
Advance the ML tech stack for recommendations, improving scalability, efficiency, reliability, and overall system performance.
Advocate for and implement best practices in availability, scalability, experimentation rigor, operational excellence, and cost management.

Requirements

What you’ll need

9+ years of post-Bachelor’s machine learning experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 8+ years of post-grad ML experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 5+ years of post-grad ML experience
2+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization
Experience developing and shipping performant and scalable machine learning models for recommendation or ranking use cases
Deep understanding of RecSys architectures and experience applying them to real-world production systems
Strong foundation in machine learning, deep learning, and large-scale recommendation/ranking systems
Excellent programming and software engineering skills, with an emphasis on clean design and production-readiness.

Benefits

Comp & perks

paid parental leave
comprehensive medical coverage
emotional and mental health support programs
compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

machine learningdeep learningrecommendation systemsranking systemsprogrammingsoftware engineeringscalabilityperformance optimizationclean designproduction-readiness

Soft Skills

technical leadershipcollaborationcommunicationstrategic alignmentadvocacy for best practicesoperational excellencecost management

Certifications

Master’s degree in a technical fieldPhD in a related technical field