Senior Machine Learning Scientist

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

Team: Engineering & Data

Location: Depop - London

Company Description

Depop is the community-powered circular fashion marketplace where anyone can buy, sell and discover desirable secondhand fashion. With a community of over 35 million users, Depop is on a mission to make fashion circular, redefining fashion consumption. Founded in 2011, the company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York and Manchester, and in 2021 became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Etsy. Find out more at www.depop.com Our mission is to make fashion circular and to create an inclusive environment where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Just as our platform connects people globally, we believe our workplace should reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. We thrive on the power of different perspectives and experiences, knowing they drive innovation and bring us closer to our users. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer, providing employment opportunities without regard to age, ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, marriage and civil partnership, or any other protected status. We’re continuously evolving our recruitment processes to ensure fairness and are open to accommodating any needs you might have. If, due to a disability, you need adjustments to complete the application, please let us know by sending an email with your name, the role to which you would like to apply, and the type of support you need to complete the application to . For any other non-disability related questions, please reach out to our Talent Partners.

Life is about creating. That's why we're home to over 30 million artists, stylists, designers, sneakerheads — and you? We're the community-powered, circular-minded marketplace changing the world of online fashion. Now it's time to get inspired at Depop.

Responsibilities

Job description

Role

Depop is looking for a Senior Machine Learning Scientist to join our new Core ML team in the UK. You will work alongside a cross-functional team of Product Managers, ML Engineers, and fellow ML Scientists, helping build and maintain foundational machine learning models and infrastructure, such as product matching models, image embedding services, and lightweight classifiers, that support multiple product and marketing use cases across Depop.

As a senior member of the team, you will be expected to take ownership of high-impact projects, lead technical direction on core modelling efforts, and mentor others while working across multiple domains and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

You will:

Research, design, and deliver robust machine learning solutions to solve cross-cutting problems within the fashion resale space

Work with and fine-tune models for representation learning, computer vision, and classification, and lead efforts to productionise and scale them

Identify and define requirements from multiple stakeholders across the business, and lead the design of general-purpose machine learning solutions that power features like content understanding, moderation, and personalization

Set up and conduct large-scale experiments to test hypotheses and guide model and product improvements, ensuring statistical rigour and real-world applicability

Stay up to date with research, actively contribute to internal knowledge sharing and ML best practices, and help shape the long-term technical strategy for the team

Participate in team ceremonies, such as agile cadences, technical whiteboarding sessions, and planning/roadmapping

Communicate technical findings clearly and confidently to both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior stakeholders

Qualifications

Skills and Experience:

Significant experience working as a Machine Learning Scientist, with a proven track record of delivering and scaling models that solve complex, real-world problems

Deep understanding of machine learning concepts and experience applying them in production settings, using frameworks such as Transformers, PyTorch, or TensorFlow

Strong Python skills, with the ability to write clean, modular, production-grade code, and a solid understanding of data engineering and MLOps principles

Ability to lead end-to-end ML projects, work independently in ambiguous problem spaces, and mentor junior team members

Strong collaboration and communication skills, with experience aligning technical approaches with cross-functional teams and stakeholders

Bonus Points

Experience with NLP, image classifiers, deep learning, or large language models

Experience with experiment design and conducting A/B tests

Experience building shared or platform-style ML systems

Experience with Databricks and PySpark

Experience working with AWS or another cloud platform (GCP/Azure)