Quizlet · 2 months ago
Sr. Staff Applied AI Engineer
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$282K/yr - $344K/yr
10+ years expQuizlet is a leading learning platform dedicated to enhancing educational outcomes through innovative technology. The Sr. Staff Applied AI Engineer will lead the development of AI-powered learning tools, focusing on personalization and generative AI systems to improve learner engagement and outcomes.
E-LearningEdTechEducationInternetKnowledge Management
Responsibilities
Own the technical roadmap for applied AI spanning personalization, ranking, search, recommendations, and GenAI/LLM systems; tie modeling work directly to business metrics (engaged learners, conversion, retention, revenue)
Design 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
Lead LLM‑based features: stand up RAG pipelines, instruction‑/preference‑tuning (e.g., SFT/DPO/RL‑style), prompt engineering, and latency/cost‑aware inference strategies; define offline evals + human‑in‑the‑loop and online success metrics
Create a “Learner 360” representation by synthesizing behavior signals, explicit inputs, and conversational context into robust embeddings reused across surfaces
Institutionalize evaluation: build an eval harness for both ranking and generative systems (offline metrics like NDCG/AUC/BLEU/BERTScore; quality/safety scorecards; inter‑rater reliability), and close the loop with online A/B experiments
Ship reliably at scale: drive training‑serving consistency, drift detection, canarying, rollbacks, on‑call standards for model services, and strong CI/CD for features & models
Mentor and uplevel a high‑performing group of ML/SWE peers; set crisp technical direction and raise the bar on code quality, experimentation rigor, and reproducibility
Partner deeply with Product, Design, Legal, and Data Science on objectives, risk/benefit tradeoffs, and responsible AI practices
Stay current with the state of the art (RecSys, LLMs, multimodal) and selectively introduce methods that measurably improve learner outcomes
Qualification
Required
10+ years of industry experience in applied ML/AI or ML‑heavy software engineering, including staff‑level impact leading cross‑functional efforts end‑to‑end
BS/MS/PhD in CS, ML, or related quantitative field (or equivalent experience)
Proven record shipping large‑scale ranking/personalization or search systems (retrieval, Two‑Tower/dual encoders, multi‑task rankers), and improving online metrics (e.g., CTR, session depth, retention)
Hands‑on with LLM/GenAI systems: data curation, fine‑tuning (SFT/PEFT, preference optimization), prompt engineering, evaluation, and productionization (latency/cost/safety)
Deep fluency in Python/PyTorch, data and feature engineering, distributed training/inference on GPUs, and modern MLOps (model registry, feature stores, monitoring, drift)
Strong experiment design (offline/online), metrics literacy, and skills translating ambiguous product goals into tractable modeling roadmaps
Demonstrated technical leadership: mentoring senior engineers, setting architecture, and driving consensus amid ambiguity
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
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