Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Creative Effectiveness
About this role
This role is focused on advancing Reddit's creative strategy by developing generative AI and predictive products designed to help advertisers execute high-impact campaigns. The team is responsible for building the future of generative products for ad creative, specifically focusing on image, video, and copy generation. This Staff Machine Learning Engineer will architect and implement sophisticated systems that allow for product, font, and brand asset preservation within generative models. They will focus on performance-guided generations that maximize advertiser clicks and conversions while ensuring brand safety and compliance across all outputs.
The engineer will be directly involved in building end-to-end editing capabilities for visual assets and fine-tuning large vision-language models using performance metrics like CTR and CVR. A critical component of the role involves engineering robust safety layers to prevent the generation of non-compliant or infringing content, ensuring the technology operates within strict brand guidelines. This position exists to bridge advanced generative AI capabilities with real-world advertising performance and brand integrity.
An ideal candidate possesses deep expertise in generative AI techniques, particularly in applying concepts like IP-Adapters and LoRAs to creative generation. They must also be adept at integrating these complex systems into the product workflow and collaborating across various internal teams to deploy these features effectively.
What you will do
- Architect and implement state-of-the-art pipelines for ad creative generation.
- Develop systems capable of preserving product, font, logo, and brand assets during creative generation using techniques like IP-Adapters and LoRAs.
- Build end-to-end image and video editing capabilities, including smart-cropping, inpainting, outpainting, resizing, and style-transfer while adhering to brand guidelines.
- Adapt large vision-language models by building feedback loops that use ad performance metrics (CTR, CVR) to fine-tune the generation process (RLHF/RLPF for Ads).
- Engineer safety and compliance systems to filter and prevent the generation of non-compliant, unsafe, or copyright-infringing content.
- Collaborate with Product, Sales, Policy, UX, and other Ads ML teams to integrate ACE capabilities into the Ad Manager UI and ad delivery path.
- Embed brand-safety filters, copyright checks, and human-in-the-loop escalation paths to protect users and advertisers.
What you need
- Demonstrated hands-on experience with tree models, neural nets, ranking, and specific expertise in LLM/VLM fine-tuning and RLHF/RLPF for advertising applications.
- Comfort with quantitative analysis, including uplift metrics, variance, minimum detectable effects, and setting up experimentation frameworks for generative systems.
- A strong understanding of auction dynamics and advertiser pain points to design tools that directly impact revenue and retention.
- Prior experience developing ad creative tooling, such as headline generators, image generators, or pre-test models, is required.
- The ability to effectively communicate complex machine learning trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, executives, and product managers is essential.
- A startup mindset characterized by a bias toward action, comfort with ambiguity, and resourcefulness is necessary for navigating this evolving area.
Nice to have
- Experience navigating brand-safety, privacy, or copyright frameworks in generative AI products
Benefits
- Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits
- Income Replacement Programs 401k with Employer Match
- Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle
- Workspace support
- Professional development
- Caregiving support
- Family Planning Support
- Gender-Affirming Care
- Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
- Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the remote policy for this role?
This position is listed as Remote - United States. Reddit offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees.
What is the compensation range for this role?
The base salary range for this position is $230,000 — $322,000 USD. In addition to base salary, the role is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units.
What is the core technology focus?
The work involves architecting pipelines for ad creative generation, building end-to-end image and video editing, and fine-tuning vision-language models using RLHF/RLPF for ads.
How is the team structured regarding collaboration?
The role requires broad collaboration with Product, Sales, Policy, UX, and sibling Ads ML teams to integrate the ACE capabilities into the Ad Manager UI and ad delivery path.