Senior Machine Learning Engineer

About The Team

At Zillow, our mission is to give people the power to unlock life’s next chapter. Zillow’s AI Org plays an important part in delivering unique AI-powered experiences for the hundreds of millions of customers that visit Zillow websites each month. The Connections AI team iterates quickly and solves problems at the forefront of AI product development. This role requires an entrepreneurial approach and a driven curiosity about the constantly evolving field of LLMs and AI-powered assistants and co-pilots.

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) on the Connections AI team, you’ll be partnering with a highly skilled group of applied scientists, software developers, and machine learning engineers working together toward a bold and audacious goal.

About The Role

We are seeking a collaborative, customer-focused, and product-minded engineer and scientist with deep experience in applied machine learning. You are a roll-up-the-sleeves and get-it-done engineer with a deep understanding of, and are constantly learning about, new techniques in modeling, ML frameworks, and ML infra. You excel at prototyping new ML applications and optimizing impact, performance, and efficiency in production.

• Apply a growth-mindset and first principles to ambiguous customer problems to rapidly iterate on novel solutions and ways of working.
• Collaborate closely with applied scientists, engineering, design, and research to understand, scope, design, prototype, implement, and iterate on internal and external-facing systems supporting and implementing next-generation AI applications.
• Lead efforts to deploy machine learning applications into production.
• Cultivate connections with other teams for critical dependencies and infrastructure.
• Contribute to carrying and growing our team culture of rapid innovation and creative frugality.

Who You Are

• Proficiency with a high-level programming language (we most commonly use Python and PySpark).
• Practical knowledge of statistics (for example, causal inference, Frequentist or Bayesian inference).
• The communication skills to influence, collaborate with, and educate others (whom you may need to educate on methods and requirements in experimentation and statistics).
• Experience prototyping, developing, and implementing algorithmic solutions and new technologies with diverse analytics and data.
• Hands-on and leadership experience in deploying machine learning models into production environments.
• Experience working with large-scale datasets and building ETL pipelines using Spark, Kubeflow, and DataBricks.
• Strong understanding of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing fundamentals.
• Experience with Machine Learning tools and Frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Transformers, XGBoost, scikit-learn, etc.).
• The tenacity to embrace and tackle challenging problems.
• Practiced technical ability and passion for both owning implementation and contributing technical/thought leadership for a team of world-class scientists and engineers.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, or a related field.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience with generative AI or large language models and related technologies (knowledge retrieval solutions, for example).
• Experience with regulated, private, or sensitive data, document understanding, user interest modeling, or reinforcement learning.
• Experience collaborating with science, engineering, design, research, and product partners in a team with a startup culture.
• Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) or equivalent experience in Computer Science or Engineering, Machine Learning, or related field.

Benefits

Zillow offers comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability coverages as well as parental leave, family benefits, retirement contributions, and paid time off. We’re also setting the standard for work experiences of the future, where our employees are supported in doing their best work and living a flexible, well-balanced life.