Principal Applied Scientist

Location
Zurich
Contract
Full time
Job Category
Applied Science & Research

THE ROLE AND THE TEAM

The DAGT team builds state-of-the-art machine learning systems (including recommendation systems, GenAI/LLMs, and neural search) to solve high-impact problems across the customer journey. Our goal: to create experiences that are not only exciting and engaging, but deeply relevant.


As a Principal Applied Scientist, you will play a key role in addressing challenging fashion problems using cutting-edge approaches that shape how over 53 million customers discover, choose, and purchase fashion. You will help drive our scientific roadmap, applying your scientific capabilities to deliver department-wide and cross-department projects in collaboration with multiple teams. Working closely with Zalando science leaders, you will guide a team of exceptional scientists and engineers to develop models and cutting-edge machine learning products that enhance the experience of over 53 million customers. 

WHAT WE'D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

  • Utilize your extensive scientific experience in researching, deploying, and architecting machine learning and deep learning solutions to enhance the customer journey of millions of our users. Collaborate with multiple teams to create a cutting-edge science stack that aligns with the product strategy and drive architectural and design principles.

  • Develop long-term scientific roadmaps to address complex fashion challenges using state-of-the-art solutions, ensuring we stay at the forefront of innovation. Contribute to our scientific endeavors through internal peer reviews and external publications in top-tier journals and conferences.

  • Act as a mentor to junior and senior scientists, foster collaboration with other teams, and actively share knowledge and expertise within Zalando’s science community.

  • Forge close partnerships with applied science leaders, product managers, and other business stakeholders to deliver state-of-the-art machine learning solutions to our customers and uncover new opportunities for growth.

WE'D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF:

  • PhD in computer vision, deep learning, search & recommendation, or related fields (or equivalent experience), accompanied by 6+ years of industry experience. 

  • Experience in developing long-term research roadmaps and applying scientific methods to tackle research problems. A strong inclination to collaborate with product, science, and engineering managers and solve business problems through scientific solutions.

  • Extensive track record of addressing large-scale real-world problems using machine learning throughout the entire product cycle, encompassing problem analysis, data processing, literature review, production deployment, monitoring, and maintenance. 

  • Strong publication records at top-tier venues such as SIGIR, KDD, WWW, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, JMLR, etc.

  • Extensive hands-on experience in deep learning with proficiency in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow.

PERKS AT WORK

  • Culture of trust, empowerment and constructive feedback, open source commitment, meetups, game nights, 70+ internal technical and fun guilds, knowledge sharing through tech talks, internal tech academy and blogs, product demos, parties & events.

  • Competitive salary, employee share shop, 40% Zalando shopping discount, discounts from external partners, centrally located offices, public transport discounts, municipality services, great IT equipment, flexible working times, additional holidays and volunteering time off, free beverages and fruits, diverse sports and health offerings.

  • Extensive onboarding, mentoring and personal development opportunities and an international team of experts.

  • Relocation assistance for internationals, PME family service and parent & child rooms* (*available in selected locations)

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce - one that is inclusive by design. We only assess candidates based on qualifications, merit, and business needs. We welcome applications from people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, personal expressions, racial identities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and disability statuses. We only want to know why you’re great for this role, so please avoid including your picture, age, and marital status in your CV as well.

We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Please feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support and assist you throughout the hiring process.

do.BETTER - our diversity & inclusion strategy: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion

OUR OFFER
Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.

  • Employee shares program

  • 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners

  • 2 paid volunteering days a year

  • Hybrid working model with up to 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration

  • Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year

  • 25 days of vacation a year for full-time employees

  • Health and wellbeing options (SportAbo in Zurich)

  • Swiss SBB Halbtax (half-fare card)

  • Mental health support and coaching available

  • Drive your development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review

Recruiter

Donatella Marcellino

donatella.marcellino@zalando.de

Please note that all applications from this job page must be completed using the online form - we do not accept applications via e-mail. Once reviewed, our recruiters will contact applicants via an official Zalando email address (@zalando.de).

In some cases we also work with a selection of headhunters and agencies to fill specific roles. Please note that neither Zalando nor our recruiting partners will ask for any kind of payment to apply for a job or attend an interview.

If you have any questions about our recruitment process, please take a look at our FAQ page.

About Zalando

It’s the perfect time to join Zalando on our journey to build the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce. Help us offer an inspiring and quality multi-brand shopping experience for fashion and lifestyle products to about 50 million active customers in 25 markets. Or be part of our logistic infrastructure, software or service capabilities to help brands and retailers run and scale their entire e-commerce business, on or off Zalando. Join our Zalando ecosystem, to enable positive change for the fashion and lifestyle industry. 

Learn more about our culture