Quizlet · 2 months ago
Senior/Staff Applied AI Engineer
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$205K/yr - $285K/yr
5+ years expQuizlet is a leading learning platform dedicated to enhancing educational outcomes for learners worldwide. The Applied AI Engineer will play a key role in shaping AI strategies by developing intelligent, personalized learning tools that leverage machine learning and generative AI to improve user engagement and learning experiences.
E-LearningEdTechEducationInternetKnowledge Management
Responsibilities
Contribute to the technical roadmap for applied AI across personalization, ranking, search, recommendations, and GenAI/LLM systems; help connect modeling work to business metrics (engaged learners, conversion, retention, revenue)
Build components of end‑to‑end ML systems: candidate sourcing, embedding platforms & ANN retrieval, multi‑stage ranking (early/late), and value modeling with guardrails for fairness and integrity
Implement LLM‑based features: build RAG pipelines, apply instruction‑/preference‑tuning techniques (e.g., SFT/DPO), optimize prompts, and improve latency/cost‑aware inference; contribute to offline evals + human‑in‑the‑loop and online success metrics
Help develop 'Learner 360' representations by working with behavior signals, explicit inputs, and conversational context to create robust embeddings reused across surfaces
Support evaluation infrastructure: contribute to the eval harness for both ranking and generative systems (offline metrics like NDCG/AUC/BLEU/BERTScore; quality/safety scorecards), and help close the loop with online A/B experiments
Ship reliable systems at scale: ensure training‑serving consistency, implement drift detection, follow canarying/rollback protocols, participate in on‑call rotation for model services, and maintain strong CI/CD for features & models
Collaborate with and learn from senior ML/SWE teammates; write high‑quality code and follow best practices for experimentation rigor and reproducibility
Work closely with Product, Design, Legal, and Data Science on objectives, tradeoffs, and responsible AI practices
Stay current with ML research (RecSys, LLMs, multimodal) and propose new methods that could improve learner outcomes
Qualification
Required
5-8+ years of industry experience in applied ML/AI or ML‑heavy software engineering
BS/MS in CS, ML, or related quantitative field (or equivalent experience)
Experience building ranking/personalization or search systems (retrieval, Two‑Tower/dual encoders, multi‑task rankers) and contributing to online metric improvements (e.g., CTR, session depth, retention)
Hands‑on experience with LLM/GenAI systems: data curation, fine‑tuning (SFT/PEFT, preference optimization), prompt engineering, evaluation, and productionization considerations (latency/cost/safety)
Strong skills in Python/PyTorch, data and feature engineering, distributed training/inference on GPUs, and familiarity with modern MLOps (model registry, feature stores, monitoring, drift)
Solid experiment design (offline/online), metrics literacy, and ability to translate product goals into modeling solutions
Strong collaboration skills and eagerness to learn from senior engineers; some experience mentoring junior teammates is a plus
Preferred
EdTech or consumer mobile experience; conversational tutoring or learning science‑informed modeling
Publications/open‑source with RecSys/LLMs (e.g., RecSys, KDD, NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL), or contributions to safety/guardrails tooling
Experience building on a modern MLOps stack (feature mgmt, orchestration, streaming, online inference at scale)
Benefits
20 vacation days that we expect you to take!
Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)
Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice
Company
Quizlet
Quizlet is a learning platform that uses activities and games to help students practice and master what they’re learning.
201-500 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Quizlet has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (12)
2024 (10)
2023 (7)
2022 (9)
2021 (1)
2020 (8)
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageTotal Funding
$62MKey Investors
General AtlanticIcon Ventures
2020-05-13Series C· $30M
2018-02-06Series B· $20M
2015-11-23Series A· $12M
Leadership Team
Kurt Beidler
Chief Executive Officer
David Margulius
Board Member and Co-Founder
Recent News
2025-10-31
South Africa Today
2025-09-12
Mark Cuban Foundation
2025-09-09
Company data provided by crunchbase