Machine Learning Engineer - Search

Welcome to Warner Bros. Discovery… the stuff dreams are made of. Who We Are…

When we say, “the stuff dreams are made of,” we’re not just referring to the world of wizards, dragons and superheroes, or even to the wonders of Planet Earth. Behind WBD’s vast portfolio of iconic content and beloved brands are the storytellers bringing our characters to life, the creators bringing them to your living rooms and the dreamers creating what’s next…

From brilliant creatives, to technology trailblazers, across the globe, WBD offers career defining opportunities, thoughtfully curated benefits, and the tools to explore and grow into your best selves. Here you are supported, here you are celebrated, here you can thrive.

We’re looking for a Staff Machine Learning Engineer to lead the design and evolution of ML and AI driven Search algorithms for our global streaming app, HBO Max. This role will own the end-to-end search algorithm innovation from retrieval and ranking to personalization and experimentation, impacting how millions of users discover content globally.

You will operate at the intersection of ML, systems, and product, bringing both deep expertise in search/relevance systems and strong technical leadership
. You’ll help define the roadmap, drive architecture decisions, and elevate the team’s ability to build and iterate on high-quality search experiences.

• Lead the design and development of large-scale model driven search algorithms including retrieval, ranking, and query understanding
• Define and evolve the technical strategy for search
  , balancing relevance, latency, and scalability
• Drive end-to-end ML systems: data pipelines, feature engineering, model training, experimentation, and serving
• Partner closely with product, data, and infrastructure teams to shape and execute on the search roadmap and user experience
• Mentor engineers and data scientists and raise the bar on algorithm development, system design, ML and engineering practices
• Identify and drive high-impact opportunities across search and personalization
• Motivate, inspire and create a culture of experimentation and data-driven innovation while constantly striving to be an advocate for doing what is right for our customers

• 8+ years of industry experience, with 4+ years as tech lead experience (preferred)
• Deep expertise in search and/or ranking algorithms (e.g., retrieval, LTR, semantic search, query understanding, entity recognition)
• Strong experience building large-scale ML systems in production
• Proven ability to lead technical direction and influence across teams
• Experience with online experimentation and metrics-driven development
• Strong programming skills in Python (Java/Go a plus)
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Solid understanding of data fundamentals (SQL, pipelines, feature stores)
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally

• Experience with recommender systems or personalization
• Experience with NLP techniques
• Familiarity with vector search / ANN (Faiss, ScaNN, etc.)
• Experience in streaming, marketplace, or content discovery platforms

This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at  along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.

Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship…