Senior Applied Scientist

About Moloco:

Moloco builds some of the most powerful AI advertising solutions in the world. Our name—short for "machine learning company"—reflects our core mission: democratizing access to the advanced AI that has historically been reserved for tech giants. Led by machine learning pioneers who built some of the most successful ad systems at Google, including YouTube's monetization engine and key search advertising technologies, we're transforming how businesses grow and compete in the digital economy.

Built with AI from day one, Moloco’s planet-scale machine learning platform powers a suite of solutions for advertising growth and monetization. Moloco Ads is an AI-powered platform that delivers real business outcomes for mobile app marketers through performance-based user acquisition. Moloco Commerce Media enables retailers and marketplaces to build revenue-generating ad businesses that balance user experience and advertiser performance.

Moloco is headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices in Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Beijing, Singapore, Gurgaon, Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Tel Aviv, and Berlin.

The Impact You’ll Be Contributing to Moloco:

• Leading research projects, possibly with a small team of applied scientists, as part of a group of cross-functional collaborators to evaluate the health of both internal and external components to make sure the Moloco system is running safely and efficiently.
• Collaborate with your team to identify areas for infrastructure and machine learning component improvements by analyzing internal system changes, external changes, and data changes.
• Lead your project and contribute directly to deep, unbiased analysis, always driving to the actual root causes of issues.
• Participate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of new algorithms and features in collaboration with Software Engineers and Machine Learning Engineers.

The Opportunity:

The NEXT Quality (NQ) team focuses on the operation and optimization of our software systems, and ML modeling, working closely with infrastructure engineering teams and Machine learning engineers in the team. As a Senior Applied Scientist, you will lead research projects. You may lead small teams of applied scientists as part of a broader group of cross-functional collaborators working together to solve challenging problems in a complex multi-causal environment. Your work will contribute to driving performance improvements and cost reductions as you and your team debug and investigate production issues and stabilize our core system through deep end-to-end understanding.

How Do I Know if the Role is Right For Me?

• Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field, or industry experience in optimizing market prices or ML systems.
• 4+ years of work experience (industry or postgraduate) in research-related fields or an advanced degree such as a Master’s or PhD in a quantitative discipline with 2+ years of experience.
• 2+ years of experience leading research projects, preferably as part of groups that include data scientists, machine learning engineers, and software engineers.
• Proficient verbal and written English communication skills, with the ability to present information and analysis results to collaborators and occasionally to larger groups.
• Quick understanding of new information and the demonstrated ability to learn new technical skills across engineering, machine learning, and data science.
• Track record of building positive relationships with collaborators and stakeholders and working effectively with cross-functional partners in a global company.
• Strong intellectual curiosity with a passion for exploring new ideas, identifying novel approaches, and continuously improving methodologies.
• Highly self-motivated and proactive, with the ability to drive research projects forward independently while maintaining alignment with team goals.