Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Ranking - Quora

Quora is a privately held, remote-first company. This position can be performed remotely from multiple eligible countries around the world.

About Quora

Quora's mission is to grow the world's collective intelligence. To do so, we have two platforms:

• Quora: A global knowledge-sharing platform with millions of monthly unique visitors, bringing people together to share insights and learn.
• Poe: A cloud workspace where millions of users run multiple AI agents on shared context and tools.

Behind these products are passionate, collaborative, and high-performing global teams. This role will be working on our Quora product.

About the Team and Role

Our small engineering team works on challenging problems every day. At Quora, recommendation systems play a central role in connecting users with content across feed, notifications, and digest emails.

As a ranking modeling expert, you will own and advance the second-phase ranking model behind feed and digest—one of the highest-leverage surfaces at Quora—by applying the latest machine learning techniques. You will also play a key role in developing methodologies that other developers will build upon.

Responsibilities

• Improve existing machine learning ranking models using core coding skills and deep ML knowledge.
• Take end-to-end ownership of machine learning systems, including data pipelines, candidate extraction, feature engineering, model training, and production integration.
• Identify new opportunities to apply machine learning across the Quora product.
• Collaborate with other machine learning engineers to implement algorithms and systems efficiently.

Minimum Requirements

• Availability for meetings and impromptu communication during Quora's coordination hours (Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Pacific Time).
• 3+ years of professional experience working on recommendation or ranking models.
• Strong understanding of the mathematical foundations of machine learning algorithms.
• Experience building end-to-end machine learning systems.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

Preferred Requirements

• 5+ years of experience writing Python or C++ code.
• Experience with generative recommendation systems.
• Experience with user behavior/sequence modeling, transformers, or long sequence modeling applied to ranking.
• Experience leading large-scale, multi-engineer projects.
• Passion for Quora's mission and goals.

Compensation & Benefits

Quora offers country-specific compensation and benefits packages, including:

• US Applicants: $189,507 – $274,604 USD + equity + benefits.
• Canada Applicants: $243,330 – $282,076 CAD (Toronto/Vancouver) or $227,108 – $263,271 CAD (other locations) + equity + benefits.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Equity refreshers and flexible equity cash-out programs in eligible regions.
• Remote work reimbursement.
• Paid time off and Employee Assistance Programs.