YouTube · 2 days ago
Principal Engineer, YouTube Ads Quality, Marketplace Optimization
Kirkland, WA
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
15+ years expYouTube is a leading platform in the digital advertising space, and they are seeking a Principal Engineer for their Ads ML/AI team. This role involves driving the architecture and implementation of critical ML systems to enhance ad relevance and user experience in YouTube advertising.
InternetMusicVideo
Responsibilities
Lead technical strategy and roadmap for ML/AI initiatives in YouTube Ads, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance with an emphasis on ad relevance and user experience
Design and develop scalable ML systems and infrastructure for billions of daily requests, prioritizing low-latency relevance predictions, driving selection of ML techniques and tools, and focusing on models that optimize for advertiser return on investment and positive user sentiment
Mentor engineers, fostering excellence in building user-centric ad experiences and collaborating with product managers and researchers to define requirements and deliver high-impact features that improve ad relevance and user satisfaction
Identify and mitigate technical risks, and balance short-term needs with long-term goals for sustainable ad relevance
Stay current with ML/AI and advertising tech, identifying opportunities to enhance ad performance and user perception
Qualification
Required
Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related quantitative field, with a focus on recommender systems, user modeling, or computational advertising, or equivalent practical experience
15 years of experience in software development, including experience in ML/AI
Experience with distributed systems and cloud platforms (e.g., Google Cloud Platform)
Experience in technical roles working with ML algorithms, statistical modeling, and data science principles applied to user-facing products
Preferred
PhD degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
Experience with large-scale data processing technologies for ad relevance models
Experience in designing, building, and deploying large-scale production ML systems for ranking, recommendations, or personalization
Experience in advertising technology, specifically ad serving, ranking, or optimization, with improvements in user ad experience, coupled with experience leading and delivering impactful ML/AI projects and demonstrating measurable improvements in ad relevance and user satisfaction
Proficiency in Python, C++, Java, or Go
Company
YouTube
YouTube is a platform for sharing and watching videos, including movies, music clips, and amateur content.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
YouTube 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 (8763)
2024 (8872)
2023 (9682)
2022 (11626)
2021 (9109)
2020 (9785)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$11.5MKey Investors
Sequoia Capital
2006-10-01Acquired
2006-03-30Series Unknown· $8M
2005-11-01Series A· $3.5M
Leadership Team
Neal Mohan
CEO
Angela Courtin
Vice President, YouTube Marketing Brand, Creative, Culture & Media
Recent News
2026-01-09
2026-01-09
Company data provided by crunchbase