Senior Applied Scientist, Ads Personalization at Unity in Mountain View, CA, USA

Job description

• At Unity, we’re committed to building a culture that fosters collaboration and innovation. Within our fast-paced environment, we’re tackling complex challenges that drive meaningful impact for creators and users across our ecosystem.
• Our Gamer AI team plays a central role in this effort by developing state-of-the-art conversion rate (CVR) prediction and market price models that power our ad ranking and recommendation systems. By leveraging large-scale data and contextual signals, we continuously enhance prediction relevance and accuracy. This drives outcomes such as higher user engagement, stronger conversion performance, and better return on ad spend, helping advertisers achieve their goals while delivering a more engaging experience for users.
• We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Applied Scientist to build and maintain advanced systems for understanding user behavior across applications. You will be responsible for improving ad ranking, conversion predictions, and recommendation systems, enabling richer behavioral models, smarter bidding strategies, and more effective ad performance.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain user understanding models.
• Ensure model quality and reliability by continuously monitoring performance, calibrating predictions, and addressing data drift or delayed feedback.
• Actively participate and work with other leads to set the long-term direction for the team, plan and oversee engineering designs and project execution.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts to non-engineering stakeholders.

Requirements

• Advanced degree (MS or Ph.D.) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and operating large-scale Ads delivery and optimization systems.
• 3+ years of experience in content understanding, behavior modeling, user profiling, and cohort analysis.
• Significant experience in one or more general-purpose programming languages like Python, Go, Scala, C++ or similar.
• Knowledge of metric design, experimentation methodologies, and large-scale data analysis.
• Experience designing and productionizing optimization algorithms in an ad serving platform and/or other marketplaces.
• Experience with state-of-the-art control systems, reinforcement learning algorithms.

Skills

Required

• Python
• Go
• Scala
• C++
• Machine Learning
• Statistics
• Data analysis
• Experimentation methodologies
• Optimization algorithms
• Reinforcement learning

Benefits

• At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and work-life balance.
• Please note: Benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status.
• While specific benefits vary, here are some of the ways we strive to take care of our eligible team members globally: Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance | Commute subsidy | Employee stock ownership | Competitive retirement/pension plans | Generous vacation and personal days | Support for new parents through leave and family-care programs | Office food snacks | Mental Health and Wellbeing programs and support | Employee Resource Groups | Global Employee Assistance Program | Training and development programs | Volunteering and donation matching program
• Zone A: $188,200 - $244,600
• Zone B: $167,200 - $217,300
• Zone C: $148,700 - $193,300
• This range reflects the anticipated base salary for this position. Beyond base salary, this role may be eligible for equity awards and participation in our company incentive plans (such as annual discretionary bonuses or sales commissions). The final offer amount will depend on several factors, including geographic location and the candidate’s relevant experience, professional background, and skill set.