Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Personalization

Spotify•New York, NY

21h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Personalization team builds experiences that help Spotify listeners decide what to play next, including features such as Blend and Discover Weekly. Growlithe is a fast-moving squad within Spotify’s Conversation Product Area, focused on developing emerging Search and agentic experiences. Its work includes personalized Search, music video discovery and ranking, audiobook Search expansion, and foundations for more social Search experiences. The Senior Machine Learning Engineer will help shape the next generation of Search at Spotify at the intersection of machine learning, personalization, and product development. The role involves building and improving models, ranking and retrieval systems, and scalable machine learning infrastructure to create intuitive discovery experiences for millions of listeners. It spans early experimentation through production and includes close collaboration with engineering, product, design, and research partners.

Requirements

Experience building, deploying, and improving machine learning systems in production environments.
Strong understanding of machine learning approaches for information retrieval, search ranking, recommendation systems, or personalization.
Proficiency in Python and comfort with modern machine learning frameworks and data processing tools.
Experience and interest in backend engineering at Spotify scale.
Understanding of experiment design and evaluation, model performance interpretation, and translating technical findings into product improvements.
Experience with large-scale datasets and the challenges of building reliable, scalable machine learning systems.
Ability to work across disciplines, communicate technical ideas clearly, and learn from different perspectives.
Comfort navigating ambiguity, taking ownership of complex challenges, and balancing experimentation with practical delivery.

Nice To Haves

Curiosity about emerging AI technologies, including large language models and agentic systems, and interest in their potential to improve discovery experiences.

Responsibilities

Build and improve machine learning models to make Spotify Search more relevant, personalized, and engaging.
Develop and optimize ranking and backend retrieval systems for discovering music, videos, audiobooks, and other content.
Explore AI and agentic approaches for more intuitive and conversational Search experiences.
Design, implement, and evaluate machine learning solutions from early experimentation through production.
Partner with engineers, product managers, designers, and researchers to identify opportunities and improve Search.
Use experimentation, data analysis, and performance metrics to understand model behavior, validate hypotheses, and improve the listener experience.
Contribute to scalable machine learning infrastructure and engineering practices that support reliable, high-quality Search experiences.
Share knowledge, constructively challenge assumptions, and help shape the squad’s technical direction for machine learning.