Machine Learning Engineer

About TalkingPoints

TalkingPoints is an award-winning education technology non-profit organization with the mission to unlock the potential of low-income, underserved families to support their children’s learning by partnering with their children’s schools. We are building a one-of-a-kind product in the market, a multilingual family engagement platform that connects families and teachers using human and artificial intelligence powered, two-way translated messages and personalized supports — eliminating language, time limitations, and know-how as barriers to school/family connection.

Millions of teachers and families are using TalkingPoints in their classrooms, schools and districts across the United States. TalkingPoints works with key school district partners such as Seattle Public Schools, Boston Public Schools, Buffalo Public School, Wake County and NYC DOE. We have won awards from NYU, MIT, Google, Forbes and are backed by Google, Eric Schmidt, AT&T, Cisco, and Stanford University to name a few.

TalkingPoints is at a critical inflection point in the organization's growth. We continue to see exponential growth in both our user base and our own internal structure. It's an important time to join our team and build on our momentum and ability to support students and families during this critical time in which education equity gaps are more concerning than ever. 

Diversity: we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it!

The opportunity

As a Machine Learning Engineer, you will have the opportunity to design, implement, and maintain machine learning models and algorithms that support our R&D and impact goals through large-scale data mining of usage and student outcomes data. You will collaborate closely with a cross-disciplinary team of data engineers and research stakeholders to develop insights and solutions that identify and remove barriers of under-resourced students and improve student outcomes.

The Machine Learning Engineer will report to the Head of Data and be responsible for developing and maintaining infrastructure to support machine learning analyses through AWS and GCP services. The role includes analysis of large-volume unstructured textual data using machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, Tensorflow, & sklearn, and natural language processing libraries such as NLTK, GenSim, & SpaCy. The responsibilities include:

Machine learning & natural language processing:

• Design, develop, and implement machine learning models and algorithms to derive insights from TalkingPoints messaging data, evaluate impact on student outcomes, and inform product development
• Utilize ML and NLP tools to conduct exploratory data-mining analyses on large-volume messaging data to identify usage patterns and make dosage recommendations for increasing user engagement
• Develop feature engineering techniques to enhance the quality of input data for machine learning models
• Support development of self-service dashboards by building and implementing predictive models for business analytics
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in machine learning, data science, and edtech, and proactively suggest innovative solutions

MLOps:

• Develop ML cloud infrastructure for conducting efficient and scalable analyses on large-volume textual data using AWS services
• Implement continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) processes for tracking models across the ML life cycle, ensuring efficient and reliable model deployment and monitoring
• Develop ETL/ELT pipelines from various sources using SQL and Snowflake, ensuring data integrity and accuracy

Collaboration and business acumen:

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify and understand business requirements, translating them into technical solutions
• Communicate with research stakeholders to understand research questions and define analysis methods
• Work closely with data engineers to develop machine learning infrastructure and prepare analysis data

Who you are

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field; master’s or PhD preferred
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch (or a related deep learning framework), with a strong understanding of their associated libraries and frameworks
• Proficiency in SQL and experience with database management systems, preferably Snowflake
• Familiarity with CI/CD methodologies and tools, such as Jenkins or GitLab
• Strong experience in developing and deploying machine learning models in a production environment using AWS services
• Experience with data processing, feature engineering, and data visualization techniques
• Experience working with large, time-stamped unstructured textual data using machine learning frameworks and natural language processing techniques
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to translate complex requirements into practical solutions
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively across diverse teams
• Passion for education and a commitment to improving student outcomes, particularly for under-resourced students

At TalkingPoints, we value a diverse and inclusive work environment. We are looking for team members who are user and mission-oriented, all-in together, agile and action-oriented, always learning, boldly courageous, and resourceful.

What we offer

• Competitive salary and benefits package, including full coverage health insurance and 401K match
• Flexibility to work remotely
• An incredible opportunity to be part of a mission-driven tech nonprofit and join a fun, smart, dynamic, and motivated team focused on transforming family engagement

How to apply

Please submit your resume, a brief paragraph describing your interest, and a link to your LinkedIn profile.