Director, Machine Learning Engineering – Surfaces Foundation

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in New York.

📋 Description

• Lead and support engineering managers alongside their teams in developing platform systems for personalized recommendations throughout Spotify.

• Establish and refine the technical vision for essential capabilities, which include targeting, serving, evaluation, and agent-driven systems.

• Make deliberate choices regarding what should become platform capabilities, ensuring teams can operate swiftly without adding unnecessary complexity.

• Guide the gradual evolution of the platform, facilitating continuous delivery instead of large, disruptive rewrites.

• Collaborate closely with product, data science, and engineering leaders to align priorities across various squads.

• Remain engaged with the technology when necessary, contributing to architectural decisions and addressing complex production issues.

• Promote the use of AI-assisted development tools and influence how teams effectively integrate them into their daily operations.

• Recruit, develop, and mentor engineering leaders and individual contributors, fostering a robust and inclusive team culture.

⛳️ Requirements

• Experience in building and managing machine learning systems at scale within consumer-facing products.

• Familiarity with recommendation systems, ranking, or content delivery platforms, and a comprehensive understanding of end-to-end ML workflows.

• Strong platform-oriented mindset, with the capability to determine when to develop shared capabilities versus keeping solutions closely aligned with product teams.

• Proficient in working with modern AI tools and understanding their impact on software development practices.

• Experience leading teams through transitions, facilitating the adoption of new technologies or workflows.

• Ability to collaborate effectively across various disciplines and help achieve alignment among teams with differing priorities.

• Commitment to creating inclusive and supportive team environments, investing in the growth of others.

• Comfort in navigating ambiguity and making decisions that balance immediate needs with long-term impact.

🏝️ Benefits

• Health insurance.

• Six months of paid parental leave.

• 401(k) retirement plan.

• Monthly meal allowance.

• 23 paid days off.

• 13 paid flexible holidays.

• Paid sick leave.