Senior Director of Engineering

Etsy Ads

Posted on 9/11/2023

1,001-5,000 employees

Website

Handmade & vintage items marketplace platform

Company Overview

Etsy’s mission is to keep human connection at the heart of commerce through their e-commerce platform dedicated to handmade and vintage items. The company has developed a vibrant community marketplace that empowers sellers and entrepreneurs to keep doing what they love and also delivers buyers to look for something special with human touch.

Locations

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Experience Level

Entry

Junior

Mid

Senior

Expert

CategoriesNew

AI & Machine Learning

Software Engineering

Requirements

You have experience leading large engineering teams building consumer facing products. Previous work with Ads or related recommendations, ranking or relevance is preferred
You have an understanding for how and when to use Machine Learning to deliver results for customers. Technical experience in a Machine Learning field is preferred
You understand how to create strategic alignment with multiple partners and teams
You possess a strong technical background, ideally building high availability systems that operate at scale
You are comfortable working with groups outside engineering and translating high-level business requirements into goals, roadmaps and presentations. You should also be able to comfortably communicate with non-engineers about the technical details of our Ads platform
You are an excellent coach, mentor, and developer of managers
You value people who are curious, enthusiastic, generous, and responsible

Responsibilities

You will provide leadership for six Ads product teams
You will lead a highly skilled and engaged team of managers
You will invest in the growth of your direct and indirect reports through mentoring, and management support
You will work with other managers and leaders to set the future technical direction of Etsy's Ads architecture with scalability, quality and performance in mind
You will work with other Etsy engineering leaders to foster and grow the ML community at Etsy
You will collaborate with our product management team to craft plans to achieve our business goals
Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require! You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time

Job Description

What’s the role?

Etsy is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to lead Etsy Ads, our on-site ad platform.

Etsy Ads is used by our smallest and largest sellers to grow their businesses and it is one of Etsy’s major revenue streams. You will collaborate with the Ads product teams and company leadership to grow the platform and ensure that advertising on Etsy continues to be a great investment for our sellers. The work of the Ads team spans the end-to-end experience on Etsy.com and the Etsy app, from promoting your items as a seller to shopping with ads, as well as the machine learning and infrastructure in between.

We are looking for a proven engineering leader who has experience building scalable systems, leading highly effective ML teams, and managing a product that is critical to the business. You can learn more about our philosophies, tools, and some of the challenges we’ve been solving in a Code as Craft article that describes how we’ve personalized Ads.

This is a full-time position reporting to the VP of Engineering who leads our joint Search & Ads organization. The base salary range will be 277,000 - 359,000 USD per year. In addition to salary, you will also be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family as part of your total rewards package at Etsy. This role requires your presence in Etsy’s Brooklyn office in an in-person or flex capacity. Candidates living within commutable distance of the Brooklyn Hub, may be the first to be considered. Etsy offers different work modes to meet the variety of needs and preferences of our team. Learn more about our Flex and Office-based work modes and workplace safety policies here.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

You will supervise work on challenging engineering problems such as:
- How can we ensure that the right ads results are put in front of the right buyers?
- How can we build systems to improve personalized ads ranking while protecting user privacy?
- How do we continue to scale a system that supports over 90 million buyers and sellers?
- How do we serve millions of ads dynamically in a matter of milliseconds?
- How can we keep up with industry-best machine learning developments in ranking, information retrieval while maintaining momentum quarter-to-quarter?
- How can we adjust the Ads user experience based on Buyer context?
- How can we educate the Etsy community about how Ads works?

What does the day-to-day look like?

You will provide leadership for six Ads product teams
You will lead a highly skilled and engaged team of managers
You will invest in the growth of your direct and indirect reports through mentoring, and management support
You will work with other managers and leaders to set the future technical direction of Etsy’s Ads architecture with scalability, quality and performance in mind
You will work with other Etsy engineering leaders to foster and grow the ML community at Etsy
You will collaborate with our product management team to craft plans to achieve our business goals.
Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require! You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time.

Qualifications

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

You have experience leading large engineering teams building consumer facing products. Previous work with Ads or related recommendations, ranking or relevance is preferred.
You have an understanding for how and when to use Machine Learning to deliver results for customers. Technical experience in a Machine Learning field is preferred.
You understand how to create strategic alignment with multiple partners and teams.
You possess a strong technical background, ideally building high availability systems that operate at scale.
You are comfortable working with groups outside engineering and translating high-level business requirements into goals, roadmaps and presentations. You should also be able to comfortably communicate with non-engineers about the technical details of our Ads platform.
You are an excellent coach, mentor, and developer of managers.
You value people who are curious, enthusiastic, generous, and responsible.