Principal Software/Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Quality

About the Role

Are you excited about applying cutting-edge AI / ML models and technologies to complex real-world problems? Are you inspired to deliver tangible, quantifiable impact to tens of millions of users and partners, while solving some of the toughest optimization challenges in a 4-sided marketplace? Are you passionate about mentoring and growing ML engineering talent, while instilling and fostering a principled engineering culture? If so, we have a job for you! The Ads Engineering team is looking for a seasoned ML engineering leader to act as the Area Tech Lead of Ads Quality, working alongside Ads Software Engineering leaders. In this role, you will directly contribute to the company’s myriad of AI, ML, and Quality innovations, both as an Individual Contributor and Technical Lead. You will lead the team to design next-generation, AI-powered solutions to support the business’ broadening growth. You will partner with Eng and PM leadership to prioritize and support all product needs. You will develop company-defining collaborations with other engineering pillars across Instacart. You will grow and mentor engineers, and contribute to shaping engineering culture not only for Ads but for all of Instacart.

About the Team

The Ads Engineering team builds E2E, full-stack systems to power Instacart’s industry-leading ads innovations in digital ads’ top growing channel - Retail Media. As a fast-growing, critical piece of Instacart’s overall business, the Ads Engineering team strives to both meet and support our advertiser partners for their needs today, while also challenging the status quo to push forward next-generation technologies. The team consists of a broad spectrum of engineers across all levels, with expertise ranging from backend infrastructure to data engineering to machine learning & AI to frontend technologies and more.

About the Job

• Develop & design innovative AI-powered systems addressing a wide range of Ads Quality challenges, such as: Optimize ads bidding, retrieval and auction processes toward a diverse set of advertiser goals, balancing short- and long-term objectives,
• balance between user, advertiser, and retailer needs, and turn such solutions into quantifiable, optimizable formulations,
• identify and build gen AI solutions to revolutionize all aspects of the quality stack,
• build advanced generative AI and recommendation frameworks revolutionizing advertiser experience and campaign efficacy,
• construct systems and frameworks to provide intelligent recommendations and assistance to advertisers,
• collaborate with Data Scientists to establish metrics and methodologies for both tracking, optimization, and goaling purposes.
• Define & own the Ads Quality technical strategy and roadmap, balancing between both short-term needs and long-term sustainability.
• Demonstrates ability to architect and design complex AI / quality components, considering scalability, reliability, performance, and security.
• Serves as a technical leader and mentor, guiding and empowering junior ML and software engineers through code and design reviews, knowledge sharing, collaborative problem-solving, improving key engineering processes, and fostering a thriving engineering culture.
• Serve as a technical mentor, empowering engineers at all career levels through effective coaching, collaborative code reviews and knowledge sharing to develop the next set of leaders
• Builds and maintains synergies with other ML engineering teams across Instacart; acts as a bridge representing Ads as an influential voice in company-wide technical forums.
• Contributes to company-level technical initiatives as a thought leader and key driver of Instacart’s engineering vision & goals
• Note this is a hands-on IC / TL role at the Director+ level. There are no people management expectations.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• PhD in AI / ML or related field, or equivalent academic and research experience.
• 15+ years of experience as a software and / or ML engineer.
• Proven track record of architecting & building production-grade ML systems, AI and quantitative optimization technologies at a global scale.
• Proficiency in one or more relevant systems programming languages (e.g., Go, Rust or C++) and application programming languages (eg: Python or Ruby).
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical discussions and collaborate effectively at senior to executive levels, driving consensus and clarity.
• Experience mentoring and developing engineering culture and talent.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on expertise in building large-scale AI/ML systems bridging generative AI, predictive modeling, and recommendation engines to solve real-world problems.
• Deep understanding of Ads Quality systems, including bidding, yield optimization, retrieval processes, and auction dynamics.
• Familiar with AWS, Golang, Spark, Clickhouse, Snowflake, TensorFlow.

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.

For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$335,000—$372,000 USD

WA

$321,000—$357,000 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$308,000—$342,000 USD

All other states

$278,000—$309,000 USD