Lead Machine Learning Engineer

Introduction to the role & team
Bumble exists to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, and our Machine Learning team plays a vital role in shaping how millions of people connect, build trust, and find belonging. In this role, you’ll operate at the intersection of product innovation and technical excellence, delivering intelligent systems that elevate both user experience and safety.

As a Lead Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll take ownership of complex, ambiguous problem spaces and drive end-to-end machine learning solutions that span modelling, systems, and product integration. You’ll champion our values of Courage and Excellence by making thoughtful technical decisions, challenging assumptions, and pushing for better outcomes.

AI is foundational to our future. You’ll not only build high-impact ML systems, but also embed best practices in how AI is applied across the team, helping others adopt scalable, responsible, and effective approaches.

Introduction to the role & team
Bumble exists to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable, and our Machine Learning team plays a vital role in shaping how millions of people connect, build trust, and find belonging. In this role, you’ll operate at the intersection of product innovation and technical excellence, delivering intelligent systems that elevate both user experience and safety.

As a Lead Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll take ownership of complex, ambiguous problem spaces and drive end-to-end machine learning solutions that span modelling, systems, and product integration. You’ll champion our values of Courage and Excellence by making thoughtful technical decisions, challenging assumptions, and pushing for better outcomes.

AI is foundational to our future. You’ll not only build high-impact ML systems, but also embed best practices in how AI is applied across the team, helping others adopt scalable, responsible, and effective approaches.

About Us Bumble Inc. is the parent company of Bumble Date, BFF, and Badoo. The Bumble platform enables people to build healthy and equitable relationships, through Kind Connections. Founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, Bumble was one of the first dating apps built with women at the center and connects people across dating (Bumble Date) and friendship (BFF). BFF is a friendship app where people in all stages of life can meet people nearby and create meaningful platonic connections and community based on shared interests. Badoo, which was founded in 2006, is one of the pioneers of web and mobile dating products.    AI Fluency AI is important to us. We’re excited by people who are curious and experimental, and who think thoughtfully about how AI can amplify their impact and outcomes. We encourage you to use AI responsibly as you prepare your application. Please don’t use it to fabricate experiences or answer questions live in interviews. We care deeply about authenticity and want to understand your real skills, judgment and voice, because building a meaningful, genuine connection with you matters to us.   Final Compensation Will be determined based on factors such as the selected candidate’s qualifications, relevant experience, skill set, and other job-related considerations.

Benefits & Perks
Insurance: Medical/dental/vision, 30-day eligibility. Bumble has multiple competitive offerings that will be available to you on the first of the month following date of hire.
Unlimited PTO + 1 company-wide week off + Focus Fridays every week
Fully paid life and long-term disability insurance
401k with 4% company match if you contribute 6%, 90-day eligibility
Monthly wellness benefit and access to Noom, Unmind, and Your Money Line
Maternity and Fertility benefit + 26 week paid parental leave
Premium App Access

Inclusion at Bumble Inc.  Bumble Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and we strongly encourage people of all ages, colour, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and non-binary people, veterans, parents, people with disabilities, and neurodivergent people to apply. We're happy to make any reasonable adjustments that will help you feel more confident throughout the process, please don't hesitate to let us know how we can help. In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example: she/her, he/him, they/them, etc).   AI in Bumble Inc. Hiring  At Bumble, we may use AI tools to support parts of our recruitment process — such as helping us record, transcribe, and summarize conversations, and supporting job alignment by comparing resumes and job descriptions to highlight skills and potential roles that may be a good match. These tools help us work more efficiently and stay focused on you during our conversations. Importantly, all hiring decisions are made by people. AI is used only to support our team’s efficiency and improve the candidate experience — not to evaluate or decide on your candidacy. Participation in AI-supported interviews and conversations is completely voluntary and will not impact your candidacy. If you’d prefer to opt out, simply let your recruiter or interviewer know at the start of a call, or anytime during the interview or conversation. Summaries and related data are retained only as long as needed in line with our internal data retention policies. If at any point you’d like a transcription or summary deleted, please contact your recruiter directly. For further information on how we hold and manage your data, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

What You'll do

• Lead the design and delivery of end-to-end ML systems powering recommendations, ranking, and personalization, driving measurable improvements in user outcomes

• Architect and optimise ML pipelines, integrating data processing, model training, evaluation, and deployment into scalable systems (e.g. Spark, Airflow) 

• Build and deploy advanced models using modern frameworks (e.g. PyTorch), ensuring robustness in high-scale production environments 

• Develop and apply LLM-based capabilities, including prompt design and fine-tuning approaches for production use cases 

• Drive experimentation strategy, including A/B testing and offline evaluation, to continuously improve performance and inform product decisions

• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Data teams, collaborating with purpose to translate business challenges into ML solutions

• Mentor and support other engineers, fostering a culture of Curiosity, ownership, and continuous improvement

About You

• Typically requires 7–10 years of experience, though we welcome candidates with alternative backgrounds that demonstrate equivalent skills.

• Strong expertise in machine learning, with a track record of delivering end-to-end systems in production

• Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow), with experience in areas such as recommendation systems, ranking, or NLP

• Experience designing and scaling ML pipelines and data systems (e.g. Spark, Airflow, or similar technologies)

• Hands-on experience with LLMs, including prompting, evaluation, and production integration 

• Demonstrated ability to take ownership of ambiguous problems and deliver impactful outcomes

• Strong collaboration skills, working cross-functionally and taking ownership of shared goals

• Solid AI fluency, with the ability to guide best practices in model development and responsible AI usage within a team