Senior Manager Consumer AI/ML Engineering

Open to remote work except in South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.

Information about benefits can be found here.
 

Senior Engineering Manager – AIML

NIKE, Inc. does more than outfit the world’s best athletes. It is a place to explore potential, obliterate boundaries and push out the edges of what can be. The company looks for people who can grow, think, dream and create. Its culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. The brand seeks achievers, leaders and visionaries. At NIKE, Inc. it’s about each person bringing skills and passion to a challenging and constantly evolving game.
 

WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR 

As Senior Engineering Manager within Consumer and Marketplace AIML, you will spearhead and expand our team of machine learning engineers, data scientists, and software architects. This role is pivotal in delivering scalable machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions that cater to our diverse customer base across the business spectrum. The successful candidate will tackle a range of complex business challenges, particularly in Consumer and Marketplaces, overseeing areas such as Product and Search Recommendation, enhancing Communications for people-based marketing, and other consumer-facing AI/ML products. This leadership position involves guiding teams across various geographies, fostering innovation through testing new hypotheses, and seamlessly transitioning ML solutions from concept to production in the cloud, whether through APIs, stream processing, or extensive batch processing.

A key aspect of this role is to cultivate strong partnerships with leading open-source communities, commercial vendors, and academic institutions. Your contributions will be instrumental in propelling Nike's fundamental mission of inspiring and innovating for every athlete in the world.

WHO YOU ARE

• A proven technical leader with extensive expertise in developing scalable, production-level machine learning services. Equally adept at engaging in discussions on both classic and modern ML algorithms (such as RNNs, LLMs, Reinforcement Learning, and Generative AI), as well as optimization methods, and distributed systems. Possesses the ability to thoroughly analyze code and architecture, offering insightful perspectives on the advantages and compromises of various design decisions.

• Highly organized, managing multiple timelines, priorities, and teams. Capable of swiftly adapting to changing circumstances, seizing new opportunities for Nike.

• An adept communicator skilled in navigating discussions from high-level strategic vision with executives to detailed tactical plans with development teams. Proficient in influencing and aligning company-wide efforts towards a unified goal, while also effectively managing conflicts that arise, ensuring all parties move forward together.

• Keeps abreast of industry trends, driving innovation in AIML. Collaborates with Architecture for solution consistency and recommends technologies in AI, Data Analytics, and emerging tech.

WHAT YOU BRING TO NIKE

• Bachelor’s Degree in computer science, software engineering, or related field (preferably Masters or Ph.D. preferred)

• 7 years of experience in developing production grade code in software or data engineering, machine learning or a related field + experience working in an Analytics environment

• 5+ years of experience in leading and managing ML engineering teams.

• Deep knowledge of the full Machine Learning lifecycle, from data analysis and labeling to feature engineering, model training, model selection, deployment, and A/B testing. Proficient in a wide range of Machine Learning algorithms and architectures, with the ability to develop scalable, optimized, production-ready models on public cloud platforms.

• Develop and implement machine learning models for consumer-facing applications, ensuring adherence to the highest standards of privacy and security throughout the model training and deployment process, while also addressing and managing AI ethics considerations.

• Familiar with cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, and Azure, and experienced in deploying Machine Learning models using these platforms. Should have working experience with data science platforms like SageMaker and similar offerings from other providers.

• Demonstrated expertise in leading teams to develop ML products, with proficiency in various API architectures (REST, Websocket, gRPC, etc.), mastery in CI/CD practices (Jenkins), fluency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) via Terraform, and expertise in version control with Git.

• Develop and implement a compelling vision for a top-tier machine learning engineering organization, aimed at enhancing Nike’s Consumer and Marketplace products. Set long-term goals and strategies for leveraging AI to serve Nike’s employees and consumers, guiding your teams towards achieving this north star vision.

• Capable of cross-collaborating with Enterprise Architecture, Platform, and Data teams, and driving the requirements for Machine Learning platforms, tools, and data.

• Ability to partner with product management right from the get go and evolve the product roadmap to balance value delivery and platform scalability.

• Leverage engineering and ML best practices to deliver scalable, cost-effective solutions, enhancing team performance and product quality. Draw on experience, industry insights, and creativity to innovate and exceed customer expectations, staying ahead in the fast-evolving tech and ML landscape.

• Must have knowledge and/or Experience of open-source technologies and impact of make/buy decisions in the area of Data Science, AI, & ML.

• Strong skills in team leadership and building positive relationships across Product, Architecture, and Engineering, and ability to influence decisions and changes across loosely coupled teams.

• Excellent written and oral communication skills to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Experience delivering software working with Agile frameworks, processes, and teams

WHO WILL YOU WORK WITH 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) is one of the key groups within Enterprise Data and AI and we have been chartered to help scale machine learning across Nike. One way we do this is by bringing cross-disciplinary teams of data scientists and engineers to areas of the business which are early in their AI journey. For areas of the business which are more mature and already have data science teams, we help scale machine learning by providing squads of engineers to improve the velocity of those data science teams in delivering value to the business. Our teams work across time zones in the US West, US East, and Europe. Lastly, we work closely with our platform and architecture partners to develop capabilities which help machine learning scale easier at Nike (e.g. model management, A/B testing, feature stores).