Senior Staff ML Engineer

Grindr is an AI-native platform powering millions of connections worldwide.

About The Job

This is a hybrid role based in our Palo Alto or San Francisco offices and will require you to be in office Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We’re at the dawn of an AI-driven evolution, and you’ll be a senior technical leader shaping the vision. This is your chance to harness cutting-edge machine learning to redefine how millions of people in the LGBTQ+ community around the world connect—whether it’s an entertaining chat, a casual encounter or long-term relationship. We’re doubling down on ML as the future of Grindr, and in these early days, you’ll drive strategy and execution that leaves a mark on a one-of-a-kind platform at global scale.

• Early-Stage Impact: It’s still early days for ML at Grindr, so you’ll be charting the roadmap and building foundational systems surrounded by high-impact, greenfield work, setting the stage for our long-term ML strategy.
• Recommendations That Reshape: Architect and scale recommendation platforms that match millions to their next big moment, adapting to a range of intents with impact you can feel.
• Conversations That Connect: Use LLMs to uncover insights, and define best practices for conversational AI at Grindr, helping users find their spark with precision and flair.

• Architect and oversee large-scale recommendation systems to serve millions, balancing performance and innovation.
• Leverage the latest LLMs to process vast conversation data and enhance user connections.
• Prototype, iterate, and ship production-ready ML solutions that solve real problems for our user.
• Provide technical leadership across teams, collaborating with engineering, data science and product teams to turn bold ideas into tangible results.
• Evaluate, influence, and integrate emerging AI tools and techniques at an organizational level to keep Grindr’s tech stack ahead of the curve.

Role Requirements

• 10+ years of experience building ML systems with a focus on 0-to-1 system development, platform‑scale architecture, and creating new capabilities from scratch. Experience with recommendation systems or similar is a plus.
• Proven ability to deliver at scale, with fluency in Python and popular ML frameworks.
• A scrappy mindset—you tackle messy challenges head‑on and get real results.
• Experience using data and deployment technologies (Snowflake, Airflow, Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Spark, PySpark).
• Experience building machine/deep learning models with at least one common framework such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, or Keras.
• Experience with any public cloud environment - AWS, GCP or Databricks.

You May Thrive In This Role If You

• Expertise in building and maintaining LLM workflows for nuanced, human-driven tasks.
• A track record of leading the development of recommendation platforms that hit the mark for diverse user needs.
• Thrives in a fast‑paced, outcome‑driven environment with lots of cross‑functional collaboration.
• A proven history of setting technical direction, driving adoption of ML systems across organizations, and owning products end‑to‑end from early‑stage concept to full‑scale rollout.

Benefits And Perks

• Health, Dental & Vision Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.
• Family Formation Up to $300,000 in fertility and family‑building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting.
• Compensation: Industry‑competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee.
• Gender‑Affirming Care: Industry‑leading gender‑affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.
• Time Off & Rest Flexible vacation policy. Two company‑wide rest weeks per year.
• Other Benefits: Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch.

Grindr is an equal‑opportunity employer.