Forward Deployed - Staff+ Machine Learning Engineer

Sequen AI is leading the charge for building frontier ranking models for search and recommendations. They are seeking a Staff+ Research Engineer with expertise in search and recommendation modeling to design, develop, and scale innovative ranking, embedding, and retrieval models for their personalized discovery platform.

Responsibilities:

• Develop & Optimize Ranking Models: Build, train, and deploy advanced search and recommendation models using Deep Learning techniques
• Data Engineering: Design and implement data pipelines to process large-scale datasets, ensuring models are fed with high-quality, reliable data
• Infrastructure: Work with tools like Kubernetes, Airflow, and AWS to manage scalable model deployment and experimentation environments
• Work within customer systems to design, build, and deploy production ranking and recommendation models that directly optimize for business revenue metrics such as conversion, engagement, and lifetime value
• Deliver technical artifacts for customers including end-to-end ranking pipelines, embedding and retrieval systems, and model serving infrastructure that operate reliably at scale in production workflows
• Provide white-glove deployment support for Sequen's ranking platform in large consumer enterprise environments, ensuring seamless integration with existing data ecosystems and business logic
• Design and maintain production-grade data pipelines that power ML model training and inference, ensuring data quality, freshness, and reliability across the full model lifecycle — from feature engineering through real-time scoring
• Identify and codify repeatable deployment patterns for ranking and recommendation systems across verticals, and contribute insights back to Sequen's Product and Engineering teams to accelerate future customer engagements
• Own ML production use cases end-to-end — including model monitoring, A/B testing frameworks, performance regression detection, and continuous retraining strategies — to ensure ranking systems consistently drive measurable revenue impact
• Maintain deep expertise in the latest developments in deep learning for search and recommendations, including advances in multi-stage retrieval, learning-to-rank architectures, and large-scale personalization techniques
• Build long-term relationships with customers and proactively identify new opportunities to deploy ranking and recommendation solutions that unlock additional revenue throughout the lifecycle of an engagement
• Be a champion for Sequen AI's mission of building frontier ranking models that shape end-user behavior for the world's largest consumer platforms

Requirements:

• 7+ years of experience as an ML Engineer or similar role, with a focus on deep learning for search, recommendation, or related applications
• Proficient in PyTorch, Deep Learning, and Spark, with a strong foundation in machine learning theory and algorithms
• Hands-on experience with data pipelines and processing large-scale datasets
• Design and optimize data pipelines using tools like Spark, Airflow, and dbt across GCP and AWS
• Some familiarity with tools such as Kubernetes, Airflow, Terraform and cloud platforms like AWS for deployment and scalability
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with a passion for tackling open-ended challenges