Machine Learning Engineer

Machine Learning Engineer

Shopify

Great recommendations connect people with products they'll genuinely love. As a Machine Learning Engineer on the Recommendations team, you'll build the personalization technology that powers discovery across Shop surfaces and adjacent recommendation experiences. You'll develop advanced machine learning systems spanning retrieval, ranking, and LLM-based approaches that help millions of buyers discover the right products at the right moment, while supporting millions of merchants in reaching audiences who truly want what they offer.

This is an end to end applied ML role: you'll work across data, training, offline evaluation, online experimentation, and streaming/serving infrastructure, with multiple active model families (collaborative filtering / two-tower, LLM-based candidate generation, HSTU /generative approaches, multi-objective rankers) being flighted and iterated in production.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize advanced machine learning models for recommendation systems, including retrieval and multi-objective ranking

• Build and maintain end-to-end ML pipelines, from feature engineering and training through offline evaluation, online experimentation, and production serving

• Scale LLM-based recommendation systems for production, including throughput optimization, QPS management, multi-partition workers, and operational reliability

• Collaborate closely with platform, infrastructure, and product teams to integrate ML solutions into our unified recommendations pipeline

• Research and implement innovative algorithms—including semantic/sequence models, distillation approaches, and relevance grading—to enhance recommendation quality

• Document technical insights, share best practices, and contribute to a strong experimentation culture across engineering teams

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building and deploying machine learning models for large-scale recommendation, personalization, or ranking systems

• Strong proficiency in ML frameworks including TensorFlow or PyTorch, with expert-level Python programming skills

• Hands-on experience with learning-to-rank approaches and gradient-boosted tree frameworks (XGBoost, CatBoost, LightGBM)

• Proven analytical skills for processing and extracting insights from large-scale datasets; comfort with BigQuery/dbt, feature stores, and streaming event pipelines

• Experience with statistical methods and performance optimization for ML systems at scale

• Exposure to MLOps and control planes: orchestration, infrastructure-as-code and runtime hardening

• Experience with LLM systems in production (prompt/parameter optimization, throughput scaling), semantic embeddings, two-tower architectures, or streaming serving (e.g., Flink)

• Ready to help shape how millions of buyers discover what they'll love next? Join the team building the recommendation systems that make Shop feel personal at scale.

• This role may require on-call workork

• About the discipline

• Engineering. It’s our DNA.

• Engineering isn't a department at Shopify. It's our DNA. The engineers who thrive here care about the code, the system, and the merchants relying on both. They want hard problems and uncomfortable growth. They find solutions without waiting for permission. They ship weekly. They want commerce to work better for everyone. So does our founder, Tobi, who still codes and still shapes where this thing is going.

• They're open source nerds. They pair program because two brains write better code than one. New tools, new models, new approaches. They experiment constantly. Most of what's standard here started as someone hacking on something.

• They use AI like a keyboard, reflexively and everywhere, to clear the mundane and make room for thinking. And they work in the open. The fastest way to learn here is to watch someone better than you do the work. If that sounds like you, come build with us.

• Infrastructure engineering

• Infrastructure Engineers at Shopify build and maintain the systems that handle millions of requests per second and billions of dollars in transactions. At that scale, performance gains matter and weak assumptions surface quickly. Your systems power the experience for millions of entrepreneurs and buyers every minute of every day, including peak events like Black Friday.

• Engineers at Shopify spend the majority of their time actually writing code to build and improve infrastructure. You’ll solve problems that don’t exist anywhere else, with challenges that push what’s possible. If that lights you up, come build with us.

• Growth and rewards

• Mastery-matched compensation.

• At Shopify, getting better at your craft and increasing your impact is how you grow. Twice a year, we assess both in our Mastery cycle, Shopify’s performance review. Achieving higher Mastery is a promotion, and when you earn a promotion your total rewards grow with it. Crafter and manager are equal paths, so you can pursue excellence in the craft you’re best at.

• Total Rewards

• With Flex Comp, your Rewards Wallet gives you agency over your compensation mix. Adjust your mix of cash, restricted share units, and stock options (including programs like Long-Term Equity) to where it makes sense for you, and mix it up anytime as life and priorities change. Buying a house? Want more skin in the game? Just experimenting? It’s your call.

• Flex Comp program offerings vary based on location, role, and employment type. Full details are set out in our Terms & Conditions and related plan documents.

• Built for real life

• Room for the rest of your life.

• Flexible work, remote by design

• A flexible vacation policy means most Shopifolk can take the vacation days they feel they need to recharge.

• If a change of everyday scenery is more your jam, Destination 90 means you can work from (almost) anywhere in the world for 90 days of the year.

• Your setup

• Your battlestation is your home base. Request the desk, chair, and AV gear you need to get shit done.

Benefits

• You need ‘em, we’ve got ‘em. Our health and welfare benefits may include health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance depending on your country. If you’re in a country without a package, you'll receive a monthly allowance. We also offer mental health support for you and your dependents, including immediate and confidential services like counseling and coaching sessions.

• Family support

• We offer fertility benefits globally, along with paid parental leave to welcome a new family member.