As a Senior Machine Learning Scientist you are a subject-matter expert in the theory behind one or more of the following areas of machine intelligence: NLP/Computer Vision, and their implementation as end-to-end products that generate direct business impact. You define the strategy and vision for how to generate outsized impact through automated intelligence for a product by driving a research agenda and development plan from ideation to prototyping to full productionisation.

Tasks & Responsibilities

• Develop the strategy and research plan for machine intelligence on a product family by designing innovative ML/AI models, algorithms, and approaches that deliver both short-term commercial impact and longer-term differentiated business value and customer experiences.
• Document and share the findings, and generalise these technologies into reusable frameworks.
• Translate broad business problems into ML/AI challenges and identify the best approach within the constraints of the production environment.
• Independently define and build proof-of-concepts to test new ideas and demonstrate their potential value to relevant stakeholders.
• Drive the end-to-end execution of the ML/AI development process on products, from understanding product requirements, data discovery, model development and evaluation, to implementation of a full production pipeline for both batch and stream-based deployment.
• Develop production-grade machine learning code, from models to features and pipelines, allowing for scalability, realtime, monitoring and retraining.
• Monitor product health, performance and business impact and act accordingly when requirements are not met.
• Build readable and reusable code, choosing the right technologies, coding methodologies, and approach from carefully designed rapid prototyping to software deployment at scale.
• Maintain a highly cross-disciplinary perspective, solving issues by applying approaches and methods from across a variety of ML/AI disciplines and related fields. Coach others through evidence and clear communication, explaining advanced technical concepts in simpler terms.
• Identify underlying issues and opportunities across domains and situations through application of structured thinking and logic, and drive concrete improvements. Guide and support colleagues dealing with complex scenarios.
• Continuously evolve your craft by keeping up to date with the latest developments in ML/AI and related technologies, introducing them to the machine learning community and promoting their application in areas where they can generate impact.
• Actively contribute to Machine Learning at Booking.com through training, exploration of new technologies, interviewing, onboarding and mentoring colleagues.
• Push for improvements, scaling and extending machine learning tooling and infrastructure, collaborating with central teams.

Qualifications

• Strong subject matter expertise in one or more of the following areas of ML/AI (Natural Language Processing/Understanding, Computer Vision).
• Ability to design an applied research plan for a product family from scratch as evidenced by peer-review publication or similar track record.
• Strong relevant work or academic experience (MSc + 5 years of working experience, or PhD + 2 years), involved in the development and application of Machine Learning.
• Masters degree, PhD or equivalent experience in a quantitative field (e.g. Computer Science, Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Physics, etc).
• Experience on multiple machine learning facets: working with large data sets, model development, statistics, experimentation, data visualization, optimization, software development.
• Experience collaborating cross functionally in the development of machine learning products (e.g. Developers, UX specialists, Product Managers, etc).
• Strong working knowledge of Python, Hadoop, SQL, Spark or similar big data technologies.
• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.