Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Menu Personalisation

About HelloFresh

HelloFresh is on a mission to revolutionize how people eat by offering exceptional food and tailored recipes for diverse meal occasions. Celebrating over a decade of growth, we have expanded into a global food solutions leader, operating meal kit services across 18 countries on three continents. Our brand portfolio includes HelloFresh, Green Chef, EveryPlate, Chefs Plate, Factor_, YouFoodz, The Pets Table, and GoodChop, each committed to delivering delicious, healthy, and sustainable meal options.

About The Team

The Menu Personalization team powers the recommendation systems that influence millions of customers' weekly meal choices globally. We bring together Data Scientists, Backend Engineers, Data Engineers, ML Engineers, and Product specialists to translate ideas from experimentation to production. Enhanced personalization accelerates customer satisfaction and drives business growth by helping users quickly find recipes they love.

Role Overview

We seek a seasoned technical leader to own the design, construction, and operation of production ML systems supporting menu personalization. This involves leading the entire recommender stack spanning feature pipelines, training systems, model deployment, experimentation tools, and foundational infrastructure. You will formulate strategic technical directions that have lasting impact, collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to advance production models, and set a high standard for ML engineering practices across the company.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end ML stack for menu personalization, ensuring robust feature pipelines, training workflows, model serving, experimentation tooling, and infrastructure operation.
• Partner with Data Scientists to transition experimental models into scalable, reliable production services adhering to latency, scalability, and monitoring standards.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering leadership to define and steer the personalization roadmap, grounding decisions in data and user insights.
• Maintain operational excellence by continuously monitoring and refining deployed systems as part of an iterative learning cycle.
• Elevate team capabilities through architecture reviews, mentoring, and exemplary production ML engineering.
• Make strategic architectural choices that deliver sustained value over multiple years.
• Extend influence beyond the team by establishing engineering standards adopted by other ML and data teams.
• Engage with peer leaders company-wide to promote best practices and contribute to broad engineering initiatives enhancing ML and data craftsmanship at HelloFresh.

Candidate Profile and Skills

• Minimum 8 years experience in designing, building, and operating production machine learning systems with demonstrated leadership at scale.
• Proven ability to make lasting architectural decisions influencing multiple teams over extended periods.
• Strong preference for candidates with experience in recommender systems or large-scale personalization platforms.
• Hands-on expertise with data and ML technologies such as Python and Spark, as well as backend/platform tools like Go, Kafka, and Kubernetes; skilled in managing pipelines, model deployment, and observability at scale.
• Solid statistical knowledge to design rigorous experiments and sound judgment to evaluate true model improvements amid metric variability.
• Capability to diagnose system issues, identify root causes, and maintain debuggable systems under real-world operational conditions.
• Daily practical use of AI development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot), with an understanding of how provided context affects AI output quality.
• A strong product mindset with the ability to justify technical decisions via data and clearly communicate business impact.
• Demonstrated ownership ethic and bias towards completing projects thoroughly, including the critical final stages.

Why Join HelloFresh?

• Influence the future of food by playing a pivotal role in transforming eating habits globally as we expand into a food solutions powerhouse.
• Impact strategic growth and leadership in a fast-evolving business environment by driving key technical and organizational changes.
• Be part of building a global brand focused on deep, sustainable customer relationships.
• Participate in long-term wealth creation through equity-based compensation plans such as Virtual Stock Options and Restricted Stock Units.
• Collaborate with highly motivated, intellectually curious colleagues worldwide in a performance-driven culture designed for empowerment and agility.
• Enjoy discounts on HelloFresh meal kits delivered directly to your home.

Work Arrangement

HelloFresh supports a Flexible Hybrid work model, blending remote and in-office work to optimize productivity and work-life balance. Teams generally spend 2-3 days per week at the office, with at least 2 mandatory in-office days, promoting choice, trust, and personalization in work styles.