Principal Research Scientist at System1

System1 is looking for an experienced machine learning researcher and practitioner to join our data science and machine learning team as a Principal Research Scientist.  This is a senior individual contributor role focused on driving research and development of new cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms that power automation and optimization capabilities for one of the biggest real-time acquisition marketing platforms in the world - reaching 100s of millions of users every month.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience designing and building algorithms to automate and optimize planning and decisioning for extremely complex dynamic systems with imperfect information.  You should keep up with the latest academic research and developments in reinforcement learning (e.g. MuZero, AlphaStar, Player of Games/growing-tree counterfactual regret minimization, etc) and intuitively understand how these algorithms can be applied to automate and optimize execution of large-scale advertising campaigns to balance both performance and portfolio risk. 

With billions of data points ingested daily and the ability to impact and automate millions of critical decisions that drive the core of our business, this is a unique opportunity to build new advanced ML and AI capabilities at a company that still innovates at the pace of a startup but has the data and scale of a successful billion dollar company!


What You Can Expect on the Team

Provide both hands-on/individual contributor support and technical thought leadership in the development of an automated and intelligent advertising system by advancing the state-of-the-art in machine/reinforcement learning techniques to support large-scale optimization of media/channel mix, ad selection, bidding and overall campaign performance, etc
Deploy and test promising ideas quickly and broadly, managing deadlines and deliverables while applying the latest theories to develop new and improved ML driven products and capabilities
Keep abreast of relevant research in online ad auction design, computational advertising, and computational economics
Maintain expert knowledge in computer science, machine (and deep) learning, data mining, reinforcement learning, large-scale robust optimization techniques and more
Work with cross-functional teams of engineers, scientists, and analysts, to devise implementation and experimentation strategies
Actively contribute to the wider internal and external data science and machine learning communities by sharing and publishing research and findings
Utilize broad and deep knowledge of machine learning to contribute to the development of System1’s roadmap for core machine learning capabilities
Coach and mentor data scientists to elevate the talent bar across System1 



What You Will Bring

Degree in a highly quantitative field (e.g. Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Math, Operations Research, etc) or equivalent work experience
Demonstrated experience researching & developing algorithms for intelligent automation and optimization systems
Strong machine learning and algorithmic background with a deep understanding of advanced reinforcement learning and deep learning techniques
Hands-on experience using high performance machine learning libraries and/or deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, Tensorflow, RAPIDs, etc)
Hands-on experience building ML driven products
Experience leading technical research and production grade development efforts
Fluency with at least one data science/analytics programming language (e.g. Python, R, Julia) 
Strong functional programming development skills (preferred)
Ability to effectively communicate technical information to a wide spectrum of cross-functional team members
Experience mentoring and coaching junior team members



What We Have to Offer

Competitive PTO
11 Company Holidays
Untracked sick time
100% covered Medical, Dental, Vision for employees
401k w/match
Paid professional development
Leadership & growth opportunities
Virtual company and team building events
#BI-Remote
#LI-Remote