Principal Applied Scientist

The Discovery team assists customers in their fashion discovery journey and helps them find what they are looking for. We are developing the next generation of our discovery systems, utilizing state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) and/or information retrieval (IR) methods, particularly transformer-based deep neural networks and large language models (LLMs). 

 As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will play a key role in addressing challenging fashion problems using cutting-edge approaches. You will help drive our scientific roadmap, applying your scientific capabilities to deliver department-wide and cross-department projects in collaboration with multiple teams. Working closely with Zalando science leaders, you will guide a team of exceptional scientists and engineers to develop models and cutting-edge machine learning products that enhance the experience of over 51 million customers.  

WHAT WE'D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

• Utilize your extensive scientific experience in researching, deploying, and architecting machine learning and deep learning solutions in IR to enhance the inspiration journey of millions of our customers. Collaborate with multiple teams to create a cutting-edge science stack that aligns with the product strategy and drive architectural and design principles.

• Develop long-term scientific roadmaps to address complex fashion challenges using state-of-the-art solutions, ensuring we stay at the forefront of IR innovation. Contribute to our scientific endeavors through internal peer reviews and external publications in top-tier journals and conferences.

• Act as a mentor to junior and senior scientists, foster collaboration with other teams, and actively share knowledge and expertise within Zalando’s science community.

• Forge close partnerships with applied science leaders, product managers, and other business stakeholders to deliver state-of-the-art machine learning solutions to our customers and uncover new opportunities for growth.

WE'D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF

•  PhD in IR, search & recommendation, information & knowledge management, or related fields (or equivalent experience), accompanied by 6+ years of industry experience in modern IR systems, especially neural IR. Comprehensive understanding of the key components of an IR system, including query processing, indexing, evaluation, etc. 

•  Experience in developing long-term research roadmaps and applying scientific methods to tackle research problems. A strong inclination to collaborate with product, science, and engineering managers and solve business problems through scientific solutions.

• Extensive track record of addressing large-scale real-world problems using machine learning throughout the entire product cycle, encompassing problem analysis, data processing, literature review, production deployment, monitoring, and maintenance. 

• Strong publication records at top-tier venues such as SIGIR, KDD, WWW, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, JMLR, etc.

• Extensive hands-on experience in deep learning with proficiency in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow. Familiarity with LLMs. Proficiency in full-text search engines such as Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Apache Lucene is also desired.

• Knowledge of classical IR models is a plus (boolean, vector, and probabilistic).  

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

At Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. And this vision starts with our hiring - we do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You are welcome to leave out your picture, age, or marital status from your application. We only assess candidates on their qualifications and merit. ​

We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support you throughout the hiring process. 

do.BETTER - our diversity & inclusion strategy: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/dobetter-our-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy
Our employee resource groups: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/our-employee-resource-groups

OUR OFFER

Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.

• Employee shares program

• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Zalando Lounge, discounts from external partners

• 2 paid volunteering days a year

• Hybrid working model with 60% (or more) remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration

• Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year

• 27 days of vacation a year (for Zalando SE)

• Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)

• Family services, including counseling and support

• Health and wellbeing options (including Gympass)

• Mental health support and coaching available

Learn all about Zalando and our values here: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/?gh_src=22377bdd1us