Applied Researcher

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.

Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.

Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.

Looking to help shape the future of global commerce? Grow as an applied researcher? Work on interesting projects with business impact? Join the eBay Memory & Product Knowledge team.

Here are some of the problems we are working on:

• Research, develop, and evaluate new approaches for Generative AI and foundation models, addressing challenging problems with direct relevance to eBay's customers and marketplace.
• Design and run rigorous experiments across areas such as LLMs, multimodal models, agents, model adaptation and post-training, retrieval and context, and learning from feedback.
• Develop models and prototypes and work with machine learning engineers to translate promising research into scalable capabilities and production systems.
• Build and improve methods for model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and continuous improvement using human, user, and production feedback.
• Work with large-scale text, image, behavioral, and marketplace data to formulate research problems, develop solutions, and measure their impact through offline and online evaluation.
• Collaborate across research, engineering, product, and platform teams while contributing to eBay's scientific and technical community through knowledge sharing, publications, patents, open-source work, or other technical contributions.

What you will bring

• Masters or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent research experience, with demonstrated ability to conduct high-quality machine learning research.
• Hands-on research experience in one or more areas such as Large Language Models, multimodal models, NLP, agents, post-training, reinforcement learning, retrieval, or learning from feedback.
• Strong understanding of modern machine learning methods and the ability to formulate research questions, design rigorous experiments, analyze results, and translate findings into practical solutions.
• Strong programming skills, particularly in Python and modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, with experience implementing, training, fine-tuning, and evaluating modern machine learning models.
• Experience applying research to real-world problems through industry experience, internships, research collaborations, open-source projects, or other applied work; experience with production ML systems is a plus.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work across research and engineering disciplines and communicate technical ideas and experimental results clearly.

Disclaimer: Please note that by applying to this role, you are agreeing to be considered for multiple positions. This is a general description of the qualifications and skills required for positions of this type of role.

Additional Details

The base pay range for this position is expected in the range below:

Base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including location, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a target bonus and restricted stock units (as applicable) in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including RRSP eligibility, various paid time off benefits, such as PTO and parental leave). Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

This job posting relates to an existing vacancy within eBay.

eBay is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, or other legally protected status. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please contact us at talent@ebay.com. We will make every effort to respond to your request for accommodation as soon as possible. View our accessibility statement to learn more about eBay's commitment to ensuring digital accessibility.

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