Machine Learning Engineer

About The Company

Babylist is a pioneering company dedicated to simplifying and enriching the journey of parenthood. Founded by an engineer who faced challenges in finding the perfect registry, Babylist has grown into a trusted platform that connects millions of families with the products, services, and community support they need during one of the most significant moments of their lives. With a focus on innovation and user-centric design, Babylist offers a comprehensive ecosystem that extends beyond traditional registries, encompassing financial planning, maternal health, education, and community engagement. The company has achieved remarkable growth, generating over $750 million in revenue in 2025, and has maintained profitability for eight consecutive years. Committed to building a diverse and inclusive environment, Babylist values the contributions of every team member and strives to create a workplace that fosters creativity, impact, and personal growth.

About The Role

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Babylist, you will play a critical role in shaping the personalization experience across our platform. Your primary responsibility will be to develop and own models that enhance how we deliver tailored content, recommendations, and search results to millions of families. You will lead initiatives that involve building foundational embeddings, designing scalable architectures, and deploying models that directly impact user engagement and satisfaction. The role offers a unique opportunity to work on complex, high-impact problems such as creating shared representations for diverse surfaces, resolving cross-domain user identities, and optimizing recommendation systems through rigorous experimentation. You will collaborate closely with product managers, designers, data scientists, and engineers to define the roadmap, make strategic technical decisions, and ensure that our AI-driven features meet high standards of quality, fairness, and effectiveness. While owning significant domains, you will also have the flexibility to explore new areas and influence the company's broader AI strategy.

Qualifications

To succeed in this role, candidates should have extensive experience in deploying machine learning models at scale, particularly in personalization and recommendation systems. Deep expertise in Python and the ML ecosystem—including frameworks such as PyTorch, scikit-learn, and XGBoost—is essential. Proven experience in designing custom embeddings from raw data, beyond off-the-shelf solutions, is highly valued. Candidates should demonstrate a strong ability to translate ambiguous business problems into technical solutions, taking ownership of projects from conception through deployment and monitoring. A track record of leading end-to-end ML initiatives that have positively impacted user experience is critical. Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS SageMaker, MLflow, and modern data tools such as Snowflake, dbt, and Airflow is preferred. Excellent communication skills, a collaborative mindset, and the ability to coach and influence engineering teams are also important. Candidates should be passionate about building impactful AI systems that serve real users and eager to contribute to a mission-driven organization.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and deployment of machine learning models that power personalization features across the platform, including homepage feeds, recommendations, and search.
• Design and build custom embeddings from raw, domain-specific data, ensuring representations are robust and scalable for multiple surfaces.
• Own the full lifecycle of models—from initial research and experimentation to production orchestration, deployment, and continuous monitoring.
• Establish standards for evaluating model performance, fairness, and safety, implementing evals that identify and prevent errors before models go live.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, and data teams to define problem scope, set priorities, and shape the technical and strategic roadmap.
• Mentor senior engineers, providing guidance on modeling best practices, architecture decisions, and problem-solving approaches.
• Address complex challenges such as cross-domain user identity resolution, multi-surface recommendation consistency, and live A/B testing.
• Stay informed about emerging AI techniques and incorporate innovative solutions to improve personalization and user experience.

Benefits

• Company-paid comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance plans.
• A 401(k) retirement plan with company matching contributions.
• Generous paid parental leave policies for both birthing and non-birthing parents, along with a structured return-to-work program.
• Winter Wonder Week, a paid company-wide week off at the end of each year for rest and rejuvenation.
• A remote-work stipend to support home office setup and productivity.
• Access to mental health and wellness resources to promote overall well-being.

Equal Opportunity

Babylist is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other protected status. We believe that diverse teams foster innovation and better serve our community of families. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and we look forward to welcoming talented individuals from all backgrounds to our team.