Director, Data Science & Machine Learning

Thrive Market is looking for a Director of Data Science & Machine Learning to lead the company’s ML organization and define the strategic direction for how machine learning powers the member experience. This role sits at the intersection of applied science, engineering, and product strategy.

Thrive Market is moving toward a server-driven platform architecture. Rather than relying on static templates and generic carousels, the vision is for every member to see a personalized storefront the moment they log in; product recommendations, search results, promotions, and content all dynamically assembled by ML-powered backend systems. This leader will be the driving force behind making that vision a reality.

You will inherit a team of three Senior Data Scientists and oversee the hiring of three additional team members (Senior Data Scientist, Fullstack Engineer, and Machine Learning Data Engineer). This is a hands-on leadership role: you will set the technical direction, build and scale the team, partner deeply with Product, Engineering, and business stakeholders, and ensure ML is embedded across the platform, not siloed as a service function.

ML Strategy & Organizational Leadership

• Define and execute the ML roadmap for Thrive Market, aligning machine learning investments with business priorities across search, discovery, personalization, growth, and operations.
• Build, scale, and mentor a high-performing ML team spanning data science, ML engineering, and analytics.
• Serve as the primary ML voice in product and engineering leadership forums, translating business objectives into ML-solvable problems and communicating technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.

Server-Driven Personalization & Retrieval Systems

• Architect and deliver the ML layer powering Thrive Market’s server-driven personalization platform, enabling dynamically assembled, per-member experiences at page load.
• Own end-to-end retrieval and ranking systems across search and recommendations: multi-stage pipelines (candidate generation, neural ranking, re-ranking), embedding models, and real-time feature serving.
• Lead redesign and continuous improvement of the search stack using semantic retrieval (e.g., BERT-based encoders), learned ranking, and feature-rich re-ranking models to improve relevance, engagement, and latency.
• Build and scale recommender systems (e.g., Buy It Again, Personalized Feeds, Deals) that drive meaningful revenue lift while balancing member retention, diversity, and long-term engagement.

ML Decision Systems & Business Impact

• Develop production ML decision systems; predicted lifetime value (pLTV), member segmentation, demand forecasting. Used across Finance, Growth, and Operations to guide acquisition strategy, capital allocation, and lifecycle optimization.
• Partner with cross-functional teams (Product, Marketing, Merchandising, Finance) to identify high-impact ML applications and ensure models are integrated into business workflows, not just prototyped.

ML Platform & Infrastructure

• Strengthen ML platform foundations: model deployment, feature pipelines, validation frameworks, monitoring, and experiment velocity.
• Drive adoption of best practices for ML reliability—automated testing, model health monitoring, graceful degradation, and observability.
• Enable faster iteration cycles across the ML team through tooling, infrastructure investment, and process improvements.

Applied GenAI & Innovation

• Lead applied GenAI exploration, including prototyping LLM-powered assistants for shopping, product discovery, and personalization workflows.
• Evaluate emerging ML techniques and tooling, maintaining a pragmatic lens on what delivers member and business value versus what is experimental.

Must-Have

• 8+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or applied ML engineering, with at least 3 years leading ML teams in a production environment.
• Deep technical expertise in search, retrieval, ranking, and/or recommendation systems, with demonstrated experience building multi-stage ML pipelines at scale.
• Proven track record of building and scaling an ML organization—hiring, mentoring, setting technical standards, and establishing team culture.
• Experience designing and deploying ML systems that directly drive business outcomes (revenue, engagement, retention, operational efficiency) in an e-commerce or consumer-facing platform.
• Strong cross-functional partnership skills—able to work effectively with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, and executive leadership.
• Experience with ML platform and infrastructure patterns: feature stores, model serving, experimentation frameworks, and monitoring.
• Comfort operating as both a strategic leader and a hands-on technical contributor, especially in the early stages of building out the team.

Strong Signals

• Experience with server-driven or backend-driven UI/personalization architectures.
• Background in e-commerce, marketplace, or subscription-based platforms.
• Experience with NLP/semantic search (e.g., BERT-based encoders, dense retrieval).
• Familiarity with pLTV modeling, demand forecasting, or similar decision-science applications.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs and applied GenAI in production or near-production contexts.
• Mission-driven orientation—experience at or affinity for companies focused on health, wellness, sustainability, or social impact.

• Compensation Description - The base salary range for this position is $250,000 - $300,000/Per Year.
• Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on several factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and geographic location.
• Total Compensation includes Base Salary, Annual Bonus, Stock Options, Health & Wellness Benefits, Flexible PTO, and more!
• This position requires traveling to our HQ office in Los Angeles, California, twice a year for all-company summits; once in the summer and once in the winter.

• Comprehensive health benefits (medical, dental, vision, life and disability)
• Competitive salary (DOE) + equity
• 401k plan
• 9 Observed Holidays
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Subsidized ClassPass Membership with access to fitness classes and wellness and beauty experiences
• Ability to work in our beautiful office in Playa Vista
• Free Thrive Market membership with exclusive employee discount
• Coverage for Life Coaching & Therapy Sessions on our holistic mental health and well-being platform

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