[Hiring] Senior Machine Learning Engineer @Instacart

Role Description

This is a general posting for multiple Sr. Machine Learning roles open across our 4-sided marketplace. You’ll get the chance to learn about the problems the different ML teams solve as you go through the process. Towards the end of your process, we’ll do a team-matching exercise to determine which of the open roles/teams you’ll join.

About the Team:

• The Core Experience organization at Instacart is at the forefront of applying cutting-edge AI technologies, including large language models (LLMs), to revolutionize how customers find products.
• Working alongside world-class engineers, data scientists, and product managers, we're building sophisticated machine learning and AI systems that power the future of search and recommendations at Instacart.
• Our team leverages state-of-the-art transformer architectures, multimodal AI, and generative models to enhance relevance across all shopping surfaces.
• We're constantly innovating with advanced neural retrieval methods, LLM-powered ranking algorithms, and AI-driven personalization systems.
• As part of our team, you'll tackle one of the most critical aspects of the business—helping customers connect with exactly the right products through AI.
• We're solving complex, large-scale search challenges using the latest in deep learning, natural language understanding, and LLM fine-tuning techniques.

About the Job:

• Design, develop, and deploy advanced AI and machine learning solutions, including LLMs and neural networks.
• Architect and implement state-of-the-art deep learning systems that leverage transformer models, multimodal AI, and generative techniques.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, and backend engineers to translate business requirements into cutting-edge AI applications.
• Pioneer the application of foundation models, prompt engineering, and fine-tuning methodologies.
• Engage with diverse stakeholders to ensure our AI solutions are ethically implemented and well-integrated.
• Drive continuous innovation in our AI infrastructure by researching, testing, and implementing the latest advancements in machine learning.
• Push the boundaries of operational efficiency through intelligent automation, predictive modeling, and algorithmic optimization.

Qualifications

• Have a graduate degree (masters or PhD) in artificial intelligence, machine learning or equivalent self-study and experience.
• Have 7+ years of industry experience using machine learning to solve real-world problems with large datasets.
• Have strong programming skills in Python and fluency in data manipulation (SQL, Pandas) and Machine Learning (scikit-learn, XGBoost, Keras/Tensorflow) tools.
• Have strong analytical skills and problem-solving ability.
• Are a strong communicator who can collaborate with diverse stakeholders across all levels.

Requirements

• Extensive expertise with modern deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX) and advanced LLM architectures.
• Demonstrated experience implementing and fine-tuning large language models, including prompt engineering and efficient inference optimization.
• Strong foundation in AI fundamentals including neural network architectures and generative models.
• Proven track record designing and deploying sophisticated ML/AI systems in production environments.
• Experience optimizing AI model performance across the full stack.
• Self-motivated innovator with a strong sense of ownership.
• Passion for applying cutting-edge AI research to real-world applications.

Benefits

• Highly market-competitive compensation and benefits.
• Remote work flexibility under the Flex First remote work policy.
• Eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants.