Staff Applied Scientist - Machine Learning

Rokt•Austin, TX

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Rokt is an ecommerce technology company with the mission of making every transaction more relevant. The Rokt ecommerce Network leverages proprietary machine learning systems, powering billions of transactions for hundreds of millions of customers, and is trusted to do this by companies like Live Nation, Fanatics, Macy's, AMC Theatres, PayPal, Uber, Hulu, Staples, Albertsons and HelloFresh. The Role: As a Staff Applied Scientist in the Rokt Brain team, you will lead applied research, experimentation, and model development projects - harnessing a diversity of ML theories, concepts, and models to improve complex systems powering 10 billion+ transactions per year. Growth: pathways to Principal Applied Scientist (IC Track) and Applied Science Manager/Director (People Leader track) per your preferences and abilities.

Requirements

PhD or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field with specialization in ML, AI, or Information Retrieval, and experience leading PhD level scientists/engineers on projects.
10+ years of industry experience building production-grade ML systems.
Deep expertise in at least two of the following: ML for Ads, E-commerce, or Two-Sided Marketplaces
Deep Learning Architectures e.g MMoE, PLE, DCN, Transformers, Graph Neural Networks
Bayesian Modelling & Probabilistic Methods
Reinforcement Learning (Contextual Bandits, Policy Optimization)
Price & Revenue Optimisation
Representation Learning & Embeddings
Model Optimisation (quantisation, distributed training, GPU optimisation, JIT compilation, mixed precision, inference optimisation)
Knowledge Distillation

Responsibilities

Own the research, design, development, testing, deployment and maintenance of machine learning systems and services at Rokt.
Optimise auction and decisioning logic, applying model predictions to maximise value across Rokt’s multi-sided marketplace
Conduct applied ML research, prototype new modeling approaches, and rigorously test innovations.
Evaluate and improve model performance, ensuring robustness, scalability, and interpretability.
Translate complex business needs into practical ML solutions, collaborating with product and engineering teams.
Stay ahead of emerging ML trends, contributing to knowledge sharing through tech talks, brown bags, and best practice evangelism.
Act as technical and project leader of a small team of specialists
Provide leadership on complex technical issues,
Set standards for technical excellence - from coding to architectural best practices.
Work cross-functionally with engineering and product leadership to plan and manage delivery expectations of roadmap items.
Actively monitor progress and intervene where required to mitigate risks and bottlenecks, managing expectations within and outside the team.