About Niche
Niche is a leading provider of comprehensive school search and enrollment solutions. Our mission is to empower students, parents, and educational institutions to make informed decisions through transparent and user-friendly platforms.
We leverage in-depth profiles, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools to help millions of individuals find the right schools for their needs. Simultaneously, we enable thousands of educational institutions to attract best-fit students by showcasing their unique strengths and streamlining recruitment processes.
Niche aims to create an environment where people enjoy working and can thrive professionally. We value innovation, collaboration, and growth, which drives our approach to data science and machine learning initiatives.
About the Role
We seek an experienced Staff Machine Learning Engineer to establish and lead our machine learning efforts. This key role will involve identifying high-impact opportunities, designing, building, and deploying machine learning models that drive business growth and enhance user experience across our platform.
The ideal candidate is a skilled practitioner with expertise in translating business challenges into data-driven solutions. They should possess a proven track record of deploying successful ML models into production environments, delivering tangible results, and mentoring future ML hires.
Responsibilities
* Collaborate with stakeholders: Work closely with product, engineering, data analytics, and business teams to identify and prioritize impactful ML opportunities aligning with Niche's strategic goals.
* Design & Build: Lead the development of machine learning models from data collection and feature engineering to algorithm selection, training, tuning, and validation.
* Deploy & Integrate: Develop production-grade code and systems to deploy, serve, and monitor ML models at scale, ensuring reliability and performance.
* Measure & Iterate: Define key performance metrics, establish monitoring frameworks, analyze model performance, and drive continuous improvement.
* Champion & Evangelize: Clearly communicate complex ML concepts and results to both technical and non-technical audiences.
* Lead & Mentor: Establish best practices, coding standards, and documentation, guiding and mentoring other ML engineers as the function grows.
What You Will Achieve
* Drive measurable improvements through experimentation and model iteration.
* Introduce scalable MLOps practices to support deployment, retraining, and governance.
* Develop internal tooling, reusable frameworks, and scalable ML systems.
* Influence company-wide strategy through technical leadership and ML evangelism.
Requirements
* 8+ years of professional experience in software development or data science, with at least 5+ years focused on building and deploying machine learning models.
* Demonstrable track record of shipping multiple ML models resulting in measurable business growth.
* Expertise in Python and common ML libraries/frameworks.
* Strong SQL skills and experience working with large datasets and data processing tools.
* Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
* Strong ability to understand business needs and connect technical work back to strategic objectives.
* Leadership experience and excellent communication and collaboration skills.
Bonus Points
* Experience building ML capabilities from scratch.
* Familiarity with recommendation systems, search ranking algorithms, or NLP applied to user-generated content.
* Contributions to open-source ML projects or publications in relevant conferences/journals.
Benefits
* Welcome new ideas and allow you to make an immediate impact on the team.
* Flexible paid time off (PTO) for any reason, including sick days and flexible work schedule.
* Personal laptop.
* Health/Sport Budget.
* Remote work options.