Scientist to Machine Learning Engineer

Patreon is a media and community platform where creators give their biggest fans access to exclusive work and experiences. Over 300k creators are cultivating fandoms and building their businesses each month. Creators can offer free memberships to fans looking to explore more of their work, paid memberships to give access to exclusive media and community, or sell directly to fans with Shops.

Ultimately our goal is simple: fund the creative class. And we’re leaders in that space, with:

• 8B+ earned since Patreon’s inception

• 30M free new memberships in the first year of launching that option, and

• 10M fans paying each month for exclusive access to creators’ work and community.

We’re continuing to invest heavily in building the best creator products with the best team in the creator economy and are looking for a science PhD looking to transition into a Machine Learning Engineers to support our mission.

This role is based in New York or San Francisco and open to those who are able to be in-office 2 days per week on a hybrid work model.

About the Role

• You will learn the fundamentals of Machine Learning Engineering through a combination of training sessions, on-the-job learning, and mentorship.

• You will conduct exploratory data analyses and develop proof-of-concept machine learning models to understand opportunities and potential project impact.

• You will collaborate with cross-functional partners, such as product, engineering, design, legal, and trust and safety to design effective machine learning solutions.

• You will analyze and prepare training data, including using crowdsourcing data labeling techniques.

• You will train and iterate on machine learning models using novel techniques.

• You will learn how to deploy machine learning models to production and write backend code when necessary to properly deploy the model.

• You will debug models when observability shows performance gaps, and iterate on models. 

About You

• You have a PhD in a technical discipline, such as Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Math, Biology, Psychology, Economics, among others.

• You are finishing your PhD by December 2024 or are already a postdoc/early faculty at an academic or research institution.

• You are fluent in Python and have experience with PySpark or SQL.

• You have strong statistical skills and have solid analytical thinking. You ask the right questions and strive to see beyond the numbers to understand what an analysis represents in terms of real-world applications.

• You have some understanding of basic machine learning concepts.

• You have strong coding skills and like to write clean, well-documented code.

• You are motivated to work in a fast-paced environment and have a positive impact on creators’ lives.

• You have a growth mindset and aspire to continuously improve your soft and technical skills.

• You are a great communicator with a love for clarity and simplicity.

About Patreon

Patreon powers creators to do what they love and get paid by the people who love what they do. Our team is passionate about making this mission and our core values come to life every day in our work. Through this work, our Patronauts:

• Put Creators First | They’re the reason we’re here. When creators win, we win.

• Build with Craft | We sign our name to every deliverable, just like the creators we serve.

• Make it Happen | We don’t quit. We learn and deliver. 

• Win Together | We grow as individuals. We win as a team.

We hire talented and passionate people from different backgrounds across the organization. If you’re excited about a role but your past experience doesn’t match with every bullet point outlined above, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway. If you’re a creator at heart, are energized by our mission, and share our company values, we’d love to hear from you.

Patreon is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected class.

Patreon offers a competitive benefits package including and not limited to salary, equity plans, healthcare, unlimited paid time off, company holidays and recharge days, commuter benefits, lifestyle stipends, learning and development stipends, patronage, parental leave, and 401k plan with matching.