About this role
Summary: Lead the design and evolution of advanced machine learning systems for search, retrieval, and personalization across SiriusXM's audio ecosystem. Drive technical strategy, develop transformer-based and generative AI solutions, and mentor teams to improve listener discovery and engagement.
Responsibilities
Who We Are:
SiriusXM and its brands (Pandora, SiriusXM Media, AdsWizz, Simplecast, and SiriusXM Connect) are leading a new era of audio entertainment and services by delivering the most compelling subscription and ad-supported audio entertainment experience for listeners -- in the car, at home, and anywhere on the go with connected devices. Our vision is to shape the future of audio, where everyone can be effortlessly connected to the voices, stories and music they love wherever they are.
This is the place where a diverse group of emerging talent and legends alike come to share authentic and purposeful songs, stories, sounds and insights through some of the best programming and technology in the world. Our critically-acclaimed, industry-leading audio entertainment encompasses music, sports, comedy, news, talk, live events, and podcasting. No matter their individual role, each of our employees plays a vital part in bringing SiriusXM’s vision to life every day.
SiriusXM is the leading audio entertainment company in North America, and the premier programmer and platform for subscription and digital advertising-supported audio products. SiriusXM’s platforms collectively reach approximately 150 million listeners, the largest digital audio audience across paid and free tiers in North America, and deliver music, sports, talk, news, comedy, entertainment and podcasts. Pandora, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the largest ad-supported audio entertainment streaming service in the U.S. SiriusXM's subsidiaries Simplecast and AdsWizz make it a leader in podcast hosting, production, distribution, analytics and monetization. The Company’s advertising sales organization, which operates as SiriusXM Media, leverages its scale, cross-platform sales organization and ad tech capabilities to deliver results for audio creators and advertisers. SiriusXM, through SiriusXM Canada Holdings, Inc., also offers satellite radio and audio entertainment in Canada. In addition to its audio entertainment businesses, SiriusXM offers connected vehicle services to automakers.
How You'll Make an Impact
At SiriusXM and Pandora, search plays a critical role in how listeners discover and access the content they love. As a Senior Staff Machine Learning Scientist, Search, you will serve as a technical leader responsible for advancing the long-term direction of search and discovery capabilities across our audio ecosystem. You will drive the development of next-generation retrieval, ranking, query understanding, personalization, and AI-powered search experiences that improve how millions of listeners discover music, podcasts, channels, live programming, and emerging content experiences.
Operating with significant autonomy, you will lead highly complex initiatives, influence technical strategy across multiple teams, and help shape the evolution of search systems through deep expertise in machine learning, information retrieval, and generative AI. Your work will have broad impact across products and business objectives, requiring the ability to solve ambiguous problems, drive alignment among stakeholders, and translate emerging technologies into scalable production solutions.
What You'll Do:
- Lead the design, development, and evolution of advanced machine learning systems supporting search relevance, retrieval, ranking, query understanding, and personalization across diverse audio content types.
- Define technical approaches and drive execution for highly complex search and discovery initiatives that span multiple products, systems, and stakeholder groups.
- Develop and improve transformer-based, deep learning, semantic retrieval, and generative AI solutions that enhance content discovery and user engagement.
- Establish and refine methodologies for search evaluation, experimentation, offline relevance measurement, and online testing to ensure continuous improvement of user experiences.
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and Content teams to influence roadmap decisions and align technical investments with business priorities.
- Serve as a subject matter expert in search and machine learning, providing technical leadership and consultation on complex challenges across multiple teams.
- Drive adoption of emerging technologies and industry best practices related to information retrieval, large language models, semantic search, recommendation systems, and machine learning infrastructure.
- Lead the investigation and resolution of highly ambiguous technical problems that require innovative approaches, sound judgment, and cross-functional collaboration.
- Establish best practices, standards, and scalable approaches for machine learning development, deployment, monitoring, experimentation, and model lifecycle management.
- Influence technical direction through architectural guidance, technical reviews, and mentorship of scientists and engineers.
- Contribute to the growth and development of the organization by mentoring team members, sharing expertise, and fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
- Continuously evaluate business impact through metrics, experimentation, and operational performance to ensure solutions drive measurable outcomes.
- This role does not have direct supervisory responsibilities.
What You'll Need:
- Education: M.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a related quantitative field required; Ph.D. preferred.
- Experience: 8+ years of experience developing and deploying machine learning systems in production environments, including significant experience solving complex search, ranking, retrieval, or recommendation problems at scale.
- Technical Expertise: Deep expertise in information retrieval, search relevance, ranking systems, semantic search, query understanding, transformer architectures, and modern machine learning methodologies.
- Production ML: Extensive experience designing, deploying, monitoring, and optimizing production machine learning systems, including experimentation frameworks, model lifecycle management, feature stores, and large-scale distributed systems.
- Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives, influence decisions across teams, and drive outcomes without direct authority.
- Problem Solving: Proven success solving ambiguous, high-impact technical challenges and translating emerging technologies into scalable business solutions.
- Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Collaboration: Strong track record of working cross-functionally to align priorities, drive execution, and deliver measurable business results.
- Mindset: Self-motivated, strategic, and passionate about solving challenging problems while continuously advancing technical excellence.
Our goal at SiriusXM is to provide and maintain a work environment that fosters mutual respect, professionalism and cooperation. SiriusXM is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, gender identity, marital status, familial status, veteran status, sexual orientation or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
The requirements and duties described above may be modified or waived by the Company in its sole discretion without notice.