Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendation Systems - Quora (Remote)

Remote - Multiple Locations. Posted 21 days ago

The role

You will define the technical direction for Quora's recommendation ecosystem, including feed ranking and retrieval. You will lead high-impact modeling projects and integrate LLMs and generative models into the product.

What you will do

Set the technical direction for Quora's home feed recommendation systems
Lead high-impact projects across the recommender stack
Drive user engagement and content quality through online experiments
Take end-to-end ownership of ML systems
Identify new opportunities to apply machine learning to the Quora product
Partner with product, data science, and infrastructure teams
Mentor engineers and lead by example

Required qualifications

6+ years of professional software development experience in machine learning
4+ years of professional experience building and optimizing Home Feed recommendation systems for social media and user-generated content platforms
Deep knowledge of the full recommender stack: candidate generation, retrieval, ranking, re-ranking, embeddings, and multi-objective optimization
Deep understanding of mathematical foundations of machine learning algorithms
Experience leading large-scale ML projects end-to-end with measurable outcome
Strong communication and interpersonal skills
BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science
Availability for meetings and impromptu communication during Quora's coordination hours (Mon-Fri: 9am-3pm Pacific Time)

Nice to have

6+ years of experience writing Python or C++ code
Hands-on experience deploying and running generative models at scale
Background in notifications, email/digest recommendations, or growth and lifecycle modeling
Flexible and positive team player
Publications at venues like RecSys, KDD, NeurIPS, or ICML
Passion for Quora's mission and goals

Benefits

Medical/dental/vision coverage
Equity refreshers
Remote work reimbursement
Paid time off
Employee assistance programs

Before you apply

Check eligibility by country at careers.quora.com/eligible-countries
Final candidates will undergo identity verification and a comprehensive background check

About the company

Quora is a privately held, remote-first company with a mission to grow the world's collective intelligence through platforms like Quora and Poe.