Senior Applied Scientist II, Ads Optimization

Instacart
United States
Workplace: RemoteFull timeFunction: Research & Scientific (R&D)Experience: 8+ yearsEducation: mastersSkills: ["Problem-solving","Communication","Collaboration","Analytical thinking"]

Lead design and deployment of real-time optimization systems for ad bidding, pacing, and budgeting at Instacart, translating control theory, constrained optimization, and auction economics into production code that makes millions of decisions daily, while shaping the technical roadmap and measuring impact.

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FursaFursa
Instacart
Instacart
5 months ago

Senior Applied Scientist II, Ads Optimization

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 14 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead design and deployment of real-time optimization systems for ad bidding, pacing, and budgeting at Instacart, translating control theory, constrained optimization, and auction economics into production code that makes millions of decisions daily, while shaping the technical roadmap and measuring impact.
Location: United States
Workplace: Remote
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Research & Scientific (R&D)

Key Responsibilities

  • •Design and evolve real-time bid optimization systems that translate advertiser goals into optimal auction bids under uncertainty.
  • •Build intelligent budget pacing algorithms that distribute spend across time and auction opportunities.
  • •Develop the analytical frameworks that connect bidding, pacing, and budgeting into a coherent optimization objective.
  • •Shape auction mechanics including reserve pricing, multi-slot allocation, and bid-to-price mapping.
  • •Own the full research-to-production loop: diagnose system behavior from large-scale data, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, ship production code, and measure impact.

Pay and Benefits

Perks:EquityRemote Work

Key Requirements

  • •MS or PhD in operations research, applied mathematics, control systems, computational economics, or a related quantitative field.
  • •8+ years of experience building and deploying optimization or control systems in production environments.
  • •Strong foundation in at least two of: feedback control theory (PID, MPC), convex and stochastic optimization, auction theory and mechanism design, dynamic programming.
  • •Proficiency in one of the following languages: Go, Java, C++ for production systems and Python for data analysis and offline pipelines.
  • •Demonstrated ability to translate mathematical formulations into production code that runs at scale (millions of decisions per day, sub-100ms latency constraints).
Experience:8+ yearsAdvertising techReal-time biddingOptimizationProduction systemsAuction theory
Education:Master's
Skills:Problem-solvingCommunicationCollaborationAnalytical thinking
Languages:English
Tech Stack:GoJavaC++Python

Company Brief

Instacart
Operates an online grocery marketplace connecting customers with personal shoppers and local retailers for grocery delivery and pickup. Provides technology, logistics, and advertising solutions to supermarkets and consumer packaged goods brands.
Industry: Online Marketplaces
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: San Francisco, United States
Founded: 2012
Glassdoor
Glassdoor: 3.6
WebsiteLinkedIn