Staff Machine Learning Engineer

About VSCO

VSCO (pronounced vis–co) is a platform that equips photographers with the tools, community, and exposure they need to expand creatively and professionally. VSCO maintains a rich and authentic creative environment that serves photographers at all levels – preserving a home for creative opportunity, inspiration, and connection. Our mission is to champion photographers so they can make it. We empower photographers to connect with other creatives and businesses with our suite of creative tools that spans from mobile to desktop and across our global community.

We are looking for people who are driven and demonstrate initiative in taking our company mission to the next level. Employees here have the opportunity to make a big impact, and believe that when we build together, we achieve stronger outcomes than we could alone.

Our values are critical pillars to our team culture and shape the way we hire. Read more about what you can expect when working at VSCO on our Careers Page.

About The Role

You are an authority in machine learning and AI and deeply understand how those tools get used to solve real business problems. Through hard-earned experience, you have opinions about how ML can best be employed to meet the needs of your users. You’re motivated by the real impact and customer delight you drive through machine learning. Your expertise in python, SQL, and tools for data-intensive computation let you ship models quickly, in a way that’s maintainable and scalable to millions or billions of records.

From simple heuristic experiments to complex GenAI models, you work across the full data and ML stack, driven by innovation while remaining grounded in practicality. You value the craft of software engineering, and are thoughtful about the architecture of data and ML systems. Because ML and AI have the most impact when they’re seamlessly fused into a cohesive product experience, you are a relentless collaborator, and work cross-functionally to achieve the outcomes that drive businesses forward. You’re an ML and AI enthusiast who is thoughtful and curious about following the recent trends in AI, and have an understanding of what's important and what’s noise.

In This Role, You Will

• Design and implement ML-powered features for search, discovery, personalization, and recommendation systems.
• Elevate our ML platform for model building, training, and deployment at scale.
• Research and implement machine learning best practices to elevate our creator platform.
• Utilize data and ML to optimize key business funnels and enhance user experiences.
• Contribute to the development of AI-powered creative tools.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with technical and non-technical teams, bringing strong business context to your decision-making and using influence to build alignment and drive impact.
• Proactively assure progress with stakeholders and continually assess prioritization in order to move the business forward.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience designing and developing ML systems for impactful product experiences.
• Proven track record in optimizing ML algorithms and building ML pipelines with a focus on reliability and scalability.
• Proficiency in Python for writing production-ready, testable code and conducting exploratory data analysis (EDA).
• Strong understanding of SQL, statistics, and tools for effective data analysis.
• Hands-on experience with computer vision models and familiarity with the latest trends in AI and ML.
• Prior experience with data engineering and infrastructure on cloud platforms (preferably AWS).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to articulate complex ideas and build alignment.

Nice to haves

• A passion for photography and for the creative process.
• Experience developing with LLMs and building generative vision applications.

Job Perks

• Hybrid work with an office in San Francisco, CA
• Regular in-person events events to connect and collaborate
• Competitive salary & equity
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and families
• Flexible Time Off
• Company-paid parental, medical and caregiver leave
• Other perks including mental health resources and tech reimbursements

Compensation

The base salary for this position may vary based on several factors, including the approved job level. The base salary range for this role is $225,000-$255,000. Salary is one component of our total compensation package. This position also qualifies for equity (i.e. stock options) and is eligible for discretionary bonuses based on performance.

The benefits available for this position include flexible time off, a 401K retirement plan, insurance (medical, dental, vision, life/AD&D, short and long term disability), and 11 paid holidays. We also provide paid sick time as required by state and local law. Additional benefits and perks contained in our standard employee benefits package are also offered for this position.

Please note:

The application window for this role will be open until at least 12/31/2025. This opportunity will remain online based on business needs which may be before or after the specified date.

Be careful of fraudulent job posts.

If you receive outreach from someone claiming to work for VSCO, please verify they are communicating through the proper channels (vsco.co email domain or through Greenhouse).

Note that VSCO will never ask for financial information or sensitive personal information during the application process.