Director Data Science & Machine Learning

Thrive Market is looking for a Director of Data Science & Machine Learning to lead the company’s ML organization and define the strategic direction for how machine learning powers the member experience. This role sits at the intersection of applied science engineering and product strategy.

Thrive Market is moving toward a server-driven platform architecture. Rather than relying on static templates and generic carousels the vision is for every member to see a personalized storefront the moment they log in; product recommendations search results promotions and content all dynamically assembled by ML-powered backend systems. This leader will be the driving force behind making that vision a reality.

You will inherit a team of three Senior Data Scientists and oversee the hiring of three additional team members (Senior Data Scientist Fullstack Engineer and Machine Learning Data Engineer). This is a hands-on leadership role: you will set the technical direction build and scale the team partner deeply with Product Engineering and business stakeholders and ensure ML is embedded across the platform not siloed as a service function.

ML Strategy & Organizational Leadership

• Define and execute the ML roadmap for Thrive Market aligning machine learning investments with business priorities across search discovery personalization growth and operations.
• Build scale and mentor a high-performing ML team spanning data science ML engineering and analytics.
• Serve as the primary ML voice in product and engineering leadership forums translating business objectives into ML-solvable problems and communicating technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.

Server-Driven Personalization & Retrieval Systems

• Architect and deliver the ML layer powering Thrive Market’s server-driven personalization platform enabling dynamically assembled per-member experiences at page load.
• Own end-to-end retrieval and ranking systems across search and recommendations: multi-stage pipelines (candidate generation neural ranking re-ranking) embedding models and real-time feature serving.
• Lead redesign and continuous improvement of the search stack using semantic retrieval (e.g. BERT-based encoders) learned ranking and feature-rich re-ranking models to improve relevance engagement and latency.
• Build and scale recommender systems (e.g. Buy It Again Personalized Feeds Deals) that drive meaningful revenue lift while balancing member retention diversity and long-term engagement.

ML Decision Systems & Business Impact

• Develop production ML decision systems; predicted lifetime value (pLTV) member segmentation demand forecasting. Used across Finance Growth and Operations to guide acquisition strategy capital allocation and lifecycle optimization.
• Partner with cross-functional teams (Product Marketing Merchandising Finance) to identify high-impact ML applications and ensure models are integrated into business workflows not just prototyped.

ML Platform & Infrastructure

• Strengthen ML platform foundations: model deployment feature pipelines validation frameworks monitoring and experiment velocity.
• Drive adoption of best practices for ML reliability—automated testing model health monitoring graceful degradation and observability.
• Enable faster iteration cycles across the ML team through tooling infrastructure investment and process improvements.

Applied GenAI & Innovation

• Lead applied GenAI exploration including prototyping LLM-powered assistants for shopping product discovery and personalization workflows.
• Evaluate emerging ML techniques and tooling maintaining a pragmatic lens on what delivers member and business value versus what is experimental.

Must-Have

• 8+ years of experience in data science machine learning or applied ML engineering with at least 3 years leading ML teams in a production environment.
• Deep technical expertise in search retrieval ranking and/or recommendation systems with demonstrated experience building multi-stage ML pipelines at scale.
• Proven track record of building and scaling an ML organization—hiring mentoring setting technical standards and establishing team culture.
• Experience designing and deploying ML systems that directly drive business outcomes (revenue engagement retention operational efficiency) in an e-commerce or consumer-facing platform.
• Strong cross-functional partnership skills—able to work effectively with Product Engineering Marketing Finance and executive leadership.
• Experience with ML platform and infrastructure patterns: feature stores model serving experimentation frameworks and monitoring.
• Comfort operating as both a strategic leader and a hands-on technical contributor especially in the early stages of building out the team.

Strong Signals

• Experience with server-driven or backend-driven UI/personalization architectures.
• Background in e-commerce marketplace or subscription-based platforms.
• Experience with NLP/semantic search (e.g. BERT-based encoders dense retrieval).
• Familiarity with pLTV modeling demand forecasting or similar decision-science applications.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs and applied GenAI in production or near-production contexts.
• Mission-driven orientation—experience at or affinity for companies focused on health wellness sustainability or social impact.

• Compensation Description - The base salary range for this position is $250000 - $300000/Per Year.
• Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on several factors including a candidate’s qualifications skills competencies and experience and geographic location.
• Total Compensation includes Base Salary Annual Bonus Stock Options Health & Wellness Benefits Flexible PTO and more!
• This position requires traveling to our HQ office in Los Angeles California twice a year for all-company summits; once in the summer and once in the winter.

• Comprehensive health benefits (medical dental vision life and disability)
• Competitive salary (DOE) + equity
• 401k plan
• 9 Observed Holidays
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Subsidized ClassPass Membership with access to fitness classes and wellness and beauty experiences
• Ability to work in our beautiful office in Playa Vista
• Free Thrive Market membership with exclusive employee discount
• Coverage for Life Coaching & Therapy Sessions on our holistic mental health and well-being platform

© Thrive Market 2026 All rights reserved.

What We Do

Thrive Market was founded in 2014 with a mission to make healthy and sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. We're an online grocery store that delivers the highest-quality organic and sustainable products at member-exclusive low prices. What's more every paid annual membership sponsors a free one-year membership for a family in financial need. Every day we leverage innovative technology and member-first thinking to help our more than 1.5 million members find healthy products support brands making an impact and build a better food future in the process. In 2020 we became a Certified B Corporation making us the largest grocer in the U.S. to earn this coveted qualification.

Why Work With Us

Thrive Market was born out of a mission to deliver better products better brands and a healthier lifestyle to families throughout the United States. Our team is energetic talented and collaborative working together to reach our goal of providing our members with a best-in-class marketplace.

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