Staff ML Engineer

This is a hybrid role based in our San Francisco or Palo Alto offices (Palo Alto preferred) and will require you to be in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

What’s So Interesting About This Role?

At Grindr, we’re at the dawn of an AI-driven evolution, and you’ll be a key player helping to shape it. This is your chance to harness cutting-edge machine learning to redefine how millions of people in the LGBTQ+ community around the world connect —whether it’s an entertaining chat, a casual encounter or long-term relationship. We’re doubling down on ML as the future of Grindr, and in these early days, your work will leave a mark on a one-of-a-kind platform at global scale.

Early-Stage Impact : It's still early days for ML at Grindr, so you'll be joining a focused team surrounded by high-impact, greenfield work, setting the stage for our long term ML strategy.

Recommendations That Reshape : Build systems that match millions to their next big moment, adapting to a range of intents with impact you can feel.

Conversations That Connect : Use LLMs to uncover insights, and help users find their spark with precision and flair.

What’s the Job?

Architect scalable recommendation systems to serve millions, balancing performance and innovation.

Leverage the latest LLMs to process vast conversation data and enhance user connections.

Prototype, iterate, and ship production-ready ML solutions that solve real problems for our users.

Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, data science and product teams to turn bold ideas into tangible results.

Drive the exploration of emerging AI tools and techniques to keep Grindr’s tech stack ahead of the curve.

What We’ll Love About You

5+ years of experience building ML systems with a focus on 0-to-1 system development and creating new capabilities from scratch. Experience with recommendation systems or similar is a plus.

Proven ability to deliver at scale, with fluency in Python and popular ML frameworks.

A scrappy mindset—you tackle messy challenges head-on and get real results.

Experience using data and deployment technologies (Snowflake, Airflow, Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Spark, PySpark).

Experience building machine / deep learning models with at least one common framework such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, or Keras.

Experience with any public cloud environment - AWS, GCP or Databricks.

We’ll Really Swoon If You Have…

Expertise in building and maintaining LLM workflows for nuanced, human-driven tasks.

A track record of crafting recommendation systems that hit the mark for diverse user needs.

Thrives in a fast-paced, outcome-driven environment with lots of cross-functional collaboration.

A proven history of taking product ownership and thoughtfully addressing the unique needs of a specific user group, from early-stage concept to full-scale rollout.

What you'll love about us

Mission and Impact : Grindr is building the global gayborhood in your pocket. Your role will impact the lives of millions of LGBTQ+ people around the world. Through our success, we are making a world where the lives of our community are free, equal, and just.

Family Insurance : Insurance premium coverage for health, dental, and vision for you and partial coverage for your dependents.

Retirement Savings : Generous 401K plan with 6% match and immediate vest in the U.S.

Compensation : Industry-competitive compensation and eligibility for company bonus and equity programs.

Queer-Inclusive Benefits : Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.

Additional Benefits : Flexible vacation policy, monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast / lunch provided onsite, and yearly travel & leisure stipend.

About Grindr

Grindr is building the global gayborhood in your pocket. With more than 13.5 million monthly active users, Grindr has become a fundamental part of the LGBTQ+ community and is charting a path to make the world more free, equal, and just. Since 2015, Grindr for Equality has advanced safety, health, and human rights for millions of Grindr users and the global LGBTQ+ community in partnership with more than 100 community organizations in every region of the world.

Our next evolution is underway as a public company that continues to grow and build meaningful experiences for our users. From social issues to product innovations, we're setting audacious goals for our community and the business, and leveraging the latest tech stacks and a culture of engineering excellence to make it happen. At the heart of our work in this new chapter is a shared set of operating principles centered around cultivating curiosity, thinking big, setting and expediting our ambitious goals, and growing through iteration; all while keeping our users #1.

Grindr is an equal-opportunity employer

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