Staff Machine Learning Engineer

The Company

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. 

We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers.

We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards.  Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. 

Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day.  We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Job Summary:

As a Machine Learning Engineer on Venmo’s Data Science team, you’ll tackle high-impact challenges that shape how millions of people move and manage money with friends, family, and businesses. Our work spans personalization, retention, trust, discovery, and growth — from predicting churn before it happens to powering Venmo’s search and recommendations, to building smarter fraud and risk models. You’ll leverage Venmo’s unique social graph and financial ecosystem to design ML solutions that drive engagement, safety, and meaningful product experiences.

Job Description:

You’ll be a senior technical leader and thought partner across Venmo—building production-scale ML solutions that serve millions of users and strengthen the core of our product experience, with a growing focus on agentic AI and its role in shaping the future of commerce. From developing models that personalize interactions to optimizing search and discovery, your work will directly shape the future of how people move money and connect through Venmo.

You’ll collaborate closely with engineering, product, and operations teams—pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with ML and helping evolve the data science culture at Venmo.

Key Roles and Responsibilities include:

- Design, build, and deploy production-grade machine learning models that power personalization, search, ranking, discovery, and other core product experiences.
- Use machine learning to drive monetization and deliver user value—supporting initiatives such as pricing strategy, feature optimization, and behavioral targeting.
- Partner with product managers, engineers, and designers to identify high-impact opportunities, frame problems as ML tasks, and define measurable success.
- Lead the full lifecycle of model development—from data exploration and feature engineering to validation, deployment, and monitoring in production.
- Conduct rigorous offline evaluations and design online experiments (e.g., A/B tests) to assess model impact and guide iteration.
- Collaborate with data and platform engineering teams to ensure scalable infrastructure, low-latency serving, and long-term system maintainability.
- Communicate technical insights and data-driven recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Mentor junior scientists and contribute to the evolution of Venmo’s machine learning strategy, practices, and team culture.

Basic Requirements:

Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or Applied Mathematics.
- 8+ years of industry experience applying machine learning to real-world problems at scale, preferably in product or platform settings.
- Strong proficiency in Python and experience with modern ML libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, XGBoost).
- Expertise in supervised and unsupervised learning; experience with NLP, ranking systems, or user behavior modeling is a plus.
- Proficiency in SQL and experience working with large-scale data systems in cloud-based environments (e.g., BigQuery, Spark, Airflow).
- Demonstrated success deploying ML models in production, including monitoring, retraining, and debugging.
- Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical ideas into actionable product insights.
- A collaborative mindset with a passion for mentoring, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

Nice to Have

- Experience in social platforms, fintech, consumer apps, or payments ecosystems.
- Familiarity with real-time ML model serving and streaming infrastructure.
- Contributions to research publications or open-source ML projects.

Subsidiary:

Venmo

Travel Percent:

0

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The base pay for this role will depend on where you work and the relevant experience and expertise you bring. The expected range of pay for this role by location is:

Primary Location | Pay Range:

San Jose, California | ($196,500.00 - $291,500.00 Annually)

Additional Location(s) | Pay Range:

No other locations are assigned to this requisition currently.Additional compensation for this role may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.

PayPal does not charge candidates any fees for courses, applications, resume reviews, interviews, background checks, or onboarding. Any such request is a red flag and likely part of a scam. To learn more about how to identify and avoid recruitment fraud please visit https://careers.pypl.com/contact-us.

For the majority of employees, PayPal's balanced hybrid work model offers 3 days in the office for effective in-person collaboration and 2 days at your choice of either the PayPal office or your home workspace, ensuring that you equally have the benefits and conveniences of both locations.

Our Benefits:

At PayPal, we’re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can’t do this without our most important asset—you. That’s why we offer benefits to help you thrive in every stage of life. We champion your financial, physical, and mental health by offering valuable benefits and resources to help you care for the whole you.

We have great benefits including a flexible work environment, employee shares options, health and life insurance and more. To learn more about our benefits please visit https://www.paypalbenefits.com.

Who We Are:

Click Here to learn more about our culture and community.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion 

PayPal provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.  In addition, PayPal will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.  If you are unable to submit an application because of incompatible assistive technology or a disability, please contact us at [email protected].

Belonging at PayPal: 

Our employees are central to advancing our mission, and we strive to create an environment where everyone can do their best work with a sense of purpose and belonging. Belonging at PayPal means creating a workplace with a sense of acceptance and security where all employees feel included and valued. We are proud to have a diverse workforce reflective of the merchants, consumers, and communities that we serve, and we continue to take tangible actions to cultivate inclusivity and belonging at PayPal.

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please Join our Talent Community.

We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don’t hesitate to apply.