Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Who We Are

Babylist is the leading registry, e-commerce, and content platform for growing families. More than 9 million people shop with Babylist every year, making it the go-to destination for seamless purchasing, trusted guidance, and expert product recommendations for new parents and the people who love them. What began as a universal registry has grown into a full ecosystem for new parents, including the Babylist Shop, Babylist Health, and a flagship showroom in Los Angeles. Hundreds of brands in baby and beyond partner with Babylist to engage meaningfully with families during one of life’s most important transitions. With over $1 billion in annual GMV, and more than $500 million in 2024 revenue, Babylist is reshaping the $320 billion baby product industry. We’re helping parents feel confident, connected, and cared for at every step. As we build the generational brand in baby, our mission remains simple: to connect growing families with everything they need to thrive.To learn more, visit www.babylist.com.

Our Ways of Working

Babylist thrives as a remote-first company, with HQ team members located across the U.S. and Canada. We meet in person twice a year—once as a company and once by department to strengthen the relationships that power our work. We show up consistently, stay purpose-driven, leverage AI to amplify our impact, and achieve results—together, from anywhere.

Our Tech Stack

• React
• Ruby on Rails
• AWS
• Sidekiq
• MySQL
• Redis
• Native iOS and Android

What the Role Is

As Babylist’s Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll be the founding expert driving the next era of our machine learning and personalization efforts. This high-impact position is designed for a hands-on engineer—someone who builds, iterates, and productionalizes ML solutions that directly improve user experience and business outcomes.

You’ll lead technical development within a focused product pod (Product Manager, Software Engineer, occasional Designer), architecting the models behind our homepage feed, “add next” experience, and more. Reporting to our Senior Director, BI & Data Engineering, you’ll help define how advanced recommendations and AI power our platform.

Who You Are

• A high-performing engineer with 6+ years of experience delivering end to end solutions that drive business growth
• You have deep expertise in the Python ML ecosystem (pandas, sklearn, xgboost, PyTorch)
• You have strong expertise creating custom embeddings from raw data sources; you have experience going beyond off-the-shelf image/text embeddings to develop domain-specific representations for ML models.
• You have a proven track record building and delivering production-grade ML solutions, especially recommender systems or personalization features.
• You have experience with the entire ML lifecycle, including workflow orchestration (Airflow) and model monitoring.
• You have strong communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• You have a background in consumer-facing products preferred; expertise with e-commerce, dating apps, or complex user journey platforms is highly relevant.
• You demonstrate autonomy: you're able to define problem space, architect solutions from scratch (zero to one), and operate with ownership.

How You Will Make An Impact

• Pioneer ML at Babylist: As our first dedicated ML Engineer, you'll shape the roadmap, practices, and culture for machine learning and personalization at scale - architecting the future of AI-powered experiences for a beloved consumer brand.
• Own high-impact work end-to-end: Build and launch high-leverage personalization features from the ground up, not incremental improvements to legacy systems. You'll see immediate results through direct business impact and user engagement.
• Lead both technically and strategically: Be the technical pioneer and strategic leader for ML at Babylist, embedded in a close-knit team building personalized product discovery
• Collaborate across a strong data organization: Embedded in a close-knit team building personalized product discovery. Partner with data scientists, data engineers, and analytics engineers, leveraging Babylist's robust data infrastructure and resources to empower rapid model development.

Why You Will Love Working At Babylist

Our Culture

• We work with focus and intention, then step away to recharge
• We believe in exceptional management and invest in tools and opportunities to connect with colleagues
• We build products that positively impact millions of people's lives
• AI is intentionally embedded in how we work, create, and scale—supporting innovation and impact

Growth & Development

• Competitive pay and meaningful opportunities for career advancement
• We believe technology and data can solve hard problems
• We're committed to career progression and performance-based advancement

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive salary with equity and bonus opportunities
• Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Retirement savings plan with company matching and flexible spending accounts
• Generous paid parental leave and PTO
• Remote work stipend to set up your office
• Perks for physical, mental, and emotional health, parenting, childcare, and financial planning

About Compensation

We use a market-based approach to compensation. The starting salary range for this role is:

US: $189,900 to $237,400

Canada: $177,600 to $222,000 CAD

Your starting salary will be based on your location, experience, and qualifications, with increases over time tied to performance, role growth, and internal pay equity.

Interview Process & Consent
Babylist uses AI to record and transcribe all interviews for evaluation purposes in accordance with CCPA and GDPR. By participating in an interview, you consent to this recording and transcription.

Interview Integrity
During the interview process, we're evaluating your individual problem-solving skills, creativity, and approach to challenges. While AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor are part of your daily toolkit once you join Babylist, all interviews, assessments, and take-home assignments must be completed independently. 

You may not use AI tools, third-party services, coaching platforms, or content-farming services during any part of the interview process unless we explicitly permit it. We will clearly communicate when AI tools are allowed for specific assessments.

Any indication of third-party assistance or AI-generated responses will result in immediate disqualification. We may also verify educational credentials through third-party sources—providing false or misleading information will result in removal from consideration.

Official Communication
All communication will come only from the Babylist Talent Team via an @babylist.com email address. We will never request payment, bank information, or personal financial details. Be cautious of fraudulent outreach via non-company email addresses, messaging platforms (e.g., WhatsApp, Telegram), or unsolicited phone calls. Verify legitimate opportunities on our careers page.

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