Edtech.com's Summary

Quizlet is hiring a Sr. Staff Applied AI Engineer to lead the development of AI-powered learning tools that personalize and enhance educational experiences. The role involves shaping AI strategy in personalization, ranking, and generative AI systems, designing and deploying machine learning models, and mentoring engineers to drive product growth and innovation.

Highlights

Lead AI development in personalization, ranking, search, recommendations, and generative AI/LLM systems tied to business metrics.
Design end-to-end ML systems including candidate sourcing, embedding platforms, multi-stage ranking, and fairness guardrails.
Build and manage LLM-powered features such as RAG pipelines, fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and cost/latency optimization.
Create comprehensive learner representations integrating behavior, inputs, and context for reuse across platforms.
Institutionalize evaluation with offline metrics, quality/safety assessments, and A/B testing to ensure robust model performance.
Ensure reliable model deployment with training-serving consistency, drift detection, canarying, rollbacks, and CI/CD standards.
Mentor senior engineers, set technical direction, and promote high standards in code quality and experimentation.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Product, Design, Legal, and Data Science on objectives and responsible AI practices.
Require 10+ years of applied ML/AI or ML-heavy engineering experience, proficiency with large-scale ranking/personalization systems and LLM/GenAI tooling.
Offer market-competitive compensation range of $282,000 - $344,000 base salary plus stock options and comprehensive benefits.

Sr. Staff Applied AI Engineer Full Description

About Quizlet:

At Quizlet, our mission is to help every learner achieve their outcomes in the most effective and delightful way. Our $1B+ learning platform serves tens of millions of students every month, including two-thirds of U.S. high schoolers and half of U.S. college students, powering over 2 billion learning interactions monthly.

We blend cognitive science with machine learning to personalize and enhance the learning experience for students, professionals, and lifelong learners alike. Weâre energized by the potential to power more learners through multiple approaches and various tools.

Letâs Build the Future of Learning

Join us to design and deliver AI-powered learning tools that scale across the world and unlock human potential.

About the Team (Applied AI):

Our mission is to invent and deploy the next generation of intelligent, personalized, and adaptive learning experiences. Weâre consolidating AI efforts across the company into a unified portfolio and are accountable for a disproportionate share of Quizletâs growth and product differentiation. Youâll partner closely with Product, Data Science, and the AI & Data Platform to deliver an AIâdriven learning coach thatâs recognized as bestâinâclass.

About the Role:

As Sr. Staff Applied AI Engineer, you will be the handsâon technical leader shaping Quizletâs AI develop in one of the two complementary domains:

- Personalization & Ranking â retrieval and ranking systems that match learners with the right content, experiences, and monetization moments across surfaces (search, feed, notifications, ads).

- Generative AI & Agentic Systems â LLMâpowered tutoring, content understanding/synthesis, and tools that boost learner outcomes and creator productivity.

You will architect and ship a variety of models and modeling systems (from TwoâTower retrieval and multiâtask rankers to RAG/LLM pipelines), ensure robust evaluation and responsible deployment, and mentor senior engineers to multiply impact across the org.

Weâre happy to share that this is an onsite position in our San Francisco office. To help foster team collaboration, we require that employees be in the office a minimum of three days per week: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and as needed by your manager or the company. We believe that this working environment facilitates increased work efficiency, team partnership, and supports growth as an employee and organization.

In this role, you will:

Own the technical roadmap for applied AI spanning personalization, ranking, search, recommendations, and GenAI/LLM systems; tie modeling work directly to business metrics (engaged learners, conversion, retention, revenue)
Design endâtoâend ML systems: candidate sourcing, embedding platforms & ANN retrieval, multiâstage ranking (early/late), and value modeling with guardrails for fairness and integrity
Lead LLMâbased features: stand up RAG pipelines, instructionâ/preferenceâtuning (e.g., SFT/DPO/RLâstyle), prompt engineering, and latency/costâaware inference strategies; define offline evals + humanâinâtheâloop and online success metrics
Create a âLearner 360â representation by synthesizing behavior signals, explicit inputs, and conversational context into robust embeddings reused across surfaces
Institutionalize evaluation: build an eval harness for both ranking and generative systems (offline metrics like NDCG/AUC/BLEU/BERTScore; quality/safety scorecards; interârater reliability), and close the loop with online A/B experiments
Ship reliably at scale: drive trainingâserving consistency, drift detection, canarying, rollbacks, onâcall standards for model services, and strong CI/CD for features & models
Mentor and uplevel a highâperforming group of ML/SWE peers; set crisp technical direction and raise the bar on code quality, experimentation rigor, and reproducibility
Partner deeply with Product, Design, Legal, and Data Science on objectives, risk/benefit tradeoffs, and responsible AI practices
Stay current with the state of the art (RecSys, LLMs, multimodal) and selectively introduce methods that measurably improve learner outcomes

What you bring to the table:

10+ years of industry experience in applied ML/AI or MLâheavy software engineering, including staffâlevel impact leading crossâfunctional efforts endâtoâend
BS/MS/PhD in CS, ML, or related quantitative field (or equivalent experience)
Proven record shipping largeâscale ranking/personalization or search systems (retrieval, TwoâTower/dual encoders, multiâtask rankers), and improving online metrics (e.g., CTR, session depth, retention)
Handsâon with LLM/GenAI systems: data curation, fineâtuning (SFT/PEFT, preference optimization), prompt engineering, evaluation, and productionization (latency/cost/safety)
Deep fluency in Python/PyTorch, data and feature engineering, distributed training/inference on GPUs, and modern MLOps (model registry, feature stores, monitoring, drift)
Strong experiment design (offline/online), metrics literacy, and skills translating ambiguous product goals into tractable modeling roadmaps
Demonstrated technical leadership: mentoring senior engineers, setting architecture, and driving consensus amid ambiguity

Bonus points if you have:

EdTech or consumer mobile experience; conversational tutoring or learning scienceâinformed modeling
Publications/openâsource with RecSys/LLMs (e.g., RecSys, KDD, NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL), or contributions to safety/guardrails tooling
Experience building on a modern MLOps stack (feature mgmt, orchestration, streaming, online inference at scale)

Compensation, Benefits & Perks:

Quizlet is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Salary transparency helps to mitigate unfair hiring practices when it comes to discrimination and pay gaps. Total compensation for this role is market competitive, including a starting base salary of $282,000 - $344,000, depending on location and experience, as well as company stock options
Collaborate with your manager and team to create a healthy work-life balance
20 vacation days that we expect you to take!
Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)
Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice

Why Join Quizlet?

ð Massive reach: 60M+ users, 1B+ interactions per week

ð§ Cutting-edge tech: Generative AI, adaptive learning, cognitive science

ð Strong momentum: Top-tier investors, sustainable business, real traction

ð¯ Mission-first: Work that makes a difference in peopleâs lives

ð¤ Inclusive culture: Committed to equity, diversity, and belonging

We strive to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome!

We work to create a holistic interview process, where both Quizlet and candidates have an opportunity to view what it would be like to work together, in exploring a mutually beneficial partnership.

We provide a transparent setting that gives a comprehensive view of who we are!

In Closing:

At Quizlet, weâre excited about passionate people joining our teamâeven if you donât check every box on the requirements list. We value unique perspectives and believe everyone has something meaningful to contribute. Our culture is all about taking initiative, learning through challenges, and striving for high-quality work while staying curious and open to new ideas. We believe in honest, respectful communication, thoughtful collaboration, and creating a supportive space where everyone can grow and succeed together.â

Quizletâs success as an online learning community depends on a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

As an equal opportunity employer and a tech company committed to societal change, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. Come join us!

To All Recruiters and Placement Agencies:

At this time, Quizlet does not accept unsolicited agency resumes and/or profiles.

Please do not forward unsolicited agency resumes to our website or to any Quizlet employee. Quizlet will not pay fees to any third-party agency or firm nor will it be responsible for any agency fees associated with unsolicited resumes. All unsolicited resumes received will be considered the property of Quizlet.

Original Job Description