Senior ML engineer, Search

As we're continuing our journey towards becoming the best bite-sized audio platform in the world, we need more manpower within the Search team. Our senior data scientists are producing high value algorithms which need to be put in production early in the development process in order to ensure fast product iterations and best quality results.

This is the role

We are looking for a Senior ML Engineer to help bring Podimo's data products and search systems into production. You'll play a key role in bridging our Data Science and Tech teams, ensuring that models and algorithms developed by our data scientists are seamlessly integrated, scalable, and production-ready.

You'll work across the full lifecycle of our machine learning systems: designing data pipelines, deploying and monitoring models in Kubernetes, and building the infrastructure that powers our search, personalization, and NLP-driven features. This role is both technical and collaborative, helping enforce best practices, implement innovative architectures, and ensure that our AI services deliver real impact to Podimo's listeners and creators.

Your main responsibilities in this role:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data and CI/CD pipelines supporting machine learning and search systems.
• Manage and deploy services on Kubernetes, ensuring scalability, reliability, automation, and robust performance monitoring.
• Develop and optimize search ranking and retrieval systems using both traditional (BM25, learning-to-rank) and neural approaches to enhance relevance and efficiency.
• Implement advanced NLP and query understanding capabilities, including intent detection, semantic parsing, and contextual query rewriting to improve user experience.
• Monitor and analyze system performance and user behavior to identify bottlenecks, drive optimization, and continuously improve search and recommendation quality.
• Fine-tune semantic search models (e.g., BERT, RoBERTa, cross-encoders) for improved retrieval and ranking performance.
• Contribute to backend and infrastructure enhancements, delivering end-to-end, production-level ML and AI systems that power user-facing experiences.
  

This is you

You'll thrive in this role if you enjoy collaborating with talented people, all on the same mission to enrich life through listening. In your day-to-day, that means that you are motivated by the opportunity to work and develop our product to create a great user experience for our listeners. We focus on agile methodologies and a customer-centric approach.

You are a collaborative and curious team player who enjoys autonomy and the opportunity to impact the way we work. We appreciate an open, honest, and respectful communication style, a growth mindset, and the ability to work with a wide range of people. We appreciate that everyone is different and we want you to bring your best self to work in whatever form that is.

You are an effective diplomat with strong communication and organizational skills. You are patient, understanding, ego-free, and eager to give and receive constructive feedback.

Experience we're looking for:

• Proven, hands-on experience with Kubernetes, with a strong understanding of container orchestration, scalability, and service reliability.
• Hands-on experience with ElasticSearch building and integrating scalable APIs and search systems.
• Deep knowledge of search technologies and principles, including vector search, embeddings, and information retrieval.
• Experience with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs) understanding of text embeddings, semantic search, and model fine-tuning or integration for production systems.
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services such as BigQuery, Kubernetes Engine, Composer (Airflow), Vertex AI, and Pub/Sub.
• Practical experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform, ensuring reproducible, scalable, and automated deployments.
• Strong Python expertise, experience working with JVM based languages like Java/Kotlin is a plus
• Knowledge of SQL and relational databases for efficient data querying, transformation, and performance optimization.
• Experience designing and maintaining performant data infrastructure for collection, storage, processing, and serving – ideally within GCP.
• Background in building scalable and reliable data pipelines (ETL/ELT), ensuring data quality and system robustness.
• Familiarity with agile, iterative development environments, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Self-driven and proactive, comfortable working autonomously in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Naturally, being passionate and knowledgeable about podcasts, audio content, media, and entertainment is a big plus

What We Offer

• Up to six months of fully paid parental leave for all new parents - no matter how you identify or where in the world you live
• Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) for all employees
• Free online therapy sessions through We.Care
• Learning and personal development opportunities to help you thrive and enrich your skills in a fast-paced creator economy
• Flexible ways of working with the opportunity to work flexible hours
• The chance to make an impact at an international company and see your work pay off immediately
• Delicious lunch with caring colleagues in a vibrant atmosphere
  

This is the hiring process

Please share your CV or LinkedIn profile. We'd love to hear why you're interested in the job, but it's not a must. If we move forward with your application, here's what to expect:

• An initial chat with our Tech recruiter
• A chat with Engineering Manager
• A tech case and interview with potential future colleagues

We might tweak the process to keep things smooth and enjoyable. We'll be conducting interviews continuously, aiming for a start date around August or asap after that date.

Can't wait to hear from you

Equal Opportunity Employer

Podimo is an equal opportunity employer, and we believe in equal opportunities for all in our workplace. We don't discriminate based on race, colour, religion, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, age or political orientation, no matter where we operate.

This is us

Founded in Copenhagen in 2019, Podimo is a platform for podcast and audiobook lovers as well as audio content creators. Our app puts a world of podcasts and audiobooks at your fingertips. Our revenue-sharing model rewards creators for making content that people want to hear – whether they have an established following or a niche audience.

We're a courageous and curious bunch. We recognize the value every individual brings, and respect our coworkers' ideas, opinions, and time. We approach our work with integrity and humility, and believe that we are better together. We have zero time for sharp elbows and big egos.

We're fiercely passionate about discovering, creating, and obsessing over great stories. We support our creators deeply, and have massive respect for their process as we help them bring their most exciting ideas and stories to life. We love what we do, but more importantly, we have a good time doing it.

We seek to build a company and culture that mirrors the diversity of the world we're living in. This means; diversity of talent, voices, ideas, and thoughts. That goes both for our brand, our content, our creators, and our teams.

You are welcome at Podimo for who you are, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or what stories you have playing in your headphones.

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