The Search Team is at the core of Zalando’s experience and fashion discoverability. The team’s goal is to build intelligent, scalable, and personalized search experiences that connect customers with the most relevant fashion items. We aim to make every search faster, smarter, and more inspiring—turning intent into discovery. As part of the larger Search and Recommendations department, you will work with colleagues in Recommendations to optimize the customer journey to drive next level commercial impact.  

For that, we are evolving our Search systems utilizing state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) and/or information retrieval (IR) methods, particularly transformer-based deep neural networks and large language models (LLMs).

As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will address challenging Search-related problems using cutting-edge approaches. You will contribute to drive our scientific roadmap, applying your scientific capabilities and in collaboration with a team of exceptional scientists and engineers developing models and cutting-edge machine learning products that enhance the experience of over 51 million customers. 

WHERE YOUR EXPERTISE IS NEEDED

• Utilize your extensive scientific experience in researching, deploying, and architecting machine learning and deep learning solutions in NLP and IR to enhance our search systems for millions of our customers in large scale projects. Collaborate with multiple teams to create a cutting-edge science stack that aligns with the product strategy and drive architectural and design principles.

• Develop long term roadmaps for research topics that span multiple product areas and address concrete business goals. As part of the leadership team, be the sparring partner and trusted advisor for Zalando leadership and advise on strategic direction.

• Act as a mentor and guide to more junior scientists, and actively share knowledge and expertise within Zalando’s science community. 

• Forge close partnerships with applied science leaders and product managers, to deliver state-of-the-art machine learning solutions to our customers and uncover new opportunities for growth.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• PhD in NLP, IR, machine learning, or related fields (or equivalent experience), accompanied by 4+ years of industry experience, especially deep learning based NLP and/or IR methods.

• Experience leading and shaping the scientific roadmap of the teams in products that span across multiple areas and working with senior AS leaders. Ability to discover new business opportunities collaborating with product, science, and engineering managers and solve business problems through scientific solutions.

• Extensive track record of addressing real-world problems using machine learning throughout the entire product cycle, and raises departments and Zalando’s best practice in methods, algorithms and technology, including architecture, design patterns, and research roadmaps.

• Authority on deep learning and track record of leveraging research to advance the state of the art, including publication records at top-tier venues.

• Extensive hands-on experience in deep learning with proficiency in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow. Expertise with LLMs and their applications in IR. Proficiency in cloud computing platforms such as AWS is also required. 

PERKS AT WORK

• Culture of trust, empowerment and constructive feedback, open source commitment, meetups, game nights, 70+ internal technical and fun guilds, knowledge sharing through tech talks, internal tech academy and blogs, product demos, parties & events.

• Competitive salary, employee share shop, 40% Zalando shopping discount, discounts from external partners, centrally located offices, public transport discounts, municipality services, great IT equipment, flexible working times, additional holidays and volunteering time off, free beverages and fruits, diverse sports and health offerings.

• Extensive onboarding, mentoring and personal development opportunities and an international team of experts.

• Relocation assistance for internationals, PME family service and parent & child rooms* (*available in selected locations)

We celebrate diversity and are committed to building teams that represent a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit and business need.