Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendation & AI Applications

NewsBreak • Mountain View, CA

3d • $195,000 - $230,000

About The Position

NewsBreak is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to enhance its large-scale recommendation systems and implement AI/LLM technologies for production environments. The role involves working on core feed, retrieval, and ranking systems used by millions of users, as well as contributing to AI innovation projects focused on improving content discovery, personalization, and developer efficiency. This position is suited for individuals who thrive with significant ownership, hands-on development, and building robust systems.

Requirements

• 3+ years of industry experience building machine learning or recommendation systems in production.
• Strong understanding of recommendation system fundamentals (ranking, embeddings, user/item modeling, experimentation).
• Strong coding skills with Python / Java / Scala, and experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Experience working with large-scale data and ML systems (e.g., Spark, distributed training, real-time inference).
• Ability to own features end-to-end and deliver measurable business impact.

Nice To Haves

• Production experience applying AI or LLMs to recommendation systems.
• Experience contributing to 0 → 1 AI or ML-driven products.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and iterate on high-throughput, low-latency recommendation systems powering NewsBreak’s core feeds.
• Improve retrieval, ranking, and multi-objective optimization to balance engagement, retention, content quality, and business metrics.
• Own systems from offline training → online inference → A/B experimentation → metric analysis.
• Identify and resolve issues related to data quality, model drift, and system performance in production.
• Apply LLMs and foundation models to recommendation-related problems such as content understanding, user intent modeling, and feature generation.
• Prototype quickly, validate with experiments, and push successful ideas into production.
• Embrace AI-assisted development workflows, including LLM-powered coding, debugging, and analysis.
• Apply AI across feature ideation, prototyping, and experiment analysis.
• Contribute to 0–1 AI-powered projects, helping take ideas from early exploration to MVP and production.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision care for you and your family (100% coverage for employee)
• Top-tier 401(K) plan with company matching
• Paid time off and paid holidays
• FSA, HSA and commuter benefits programs
• Team activity budget

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed