Machine Learning Engineering Manager - Growth
United Kingdom Full-time Posted 3 weeks ago
About The Company
About Cleo
At Cleo, we're not just building another fintech app. We're embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity's relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper-intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That's the future we're creating.
Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast-growing unicorn with over $300 million in ARR and growing over 2x year-over-year. This isn't just a job; it's a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are not only at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact.
If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.
Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date with new product features and insights from the team.
About The Role
We're looking for an exceptional ML Engineering Manager to lead the Machine Learning efforts across our Growth team - the squad responsible for making smart, personalised decisions about what each of our 4M+ users sees, when they see it, and how we optimise for long-term value.
You'll manage a team of talented ML Engineers and collaborate with Marketing Engineers, Product Designers, PMs, and Data Scientists to build the systems that drive revenue growth while maximising lifetime value (LTV) for every single user. This is a high-impact role where you'll directly influence how we grow, retain, and monetise our user base.
The Growth team spans two squads: Growth Marketing (handling acquisition, channels, campaigns) and Growth Personalisation (handling on-app prompts, offers, and recommendations). Together, we maximise revenue while protecting long-term health.
What We're Building
Lead ML Strategy & Delivery
You're a strong technical leader with hands-on ML experience, particularly in areas like:
What Makes You a Good Fit
Technical Experience
App access for people in the UK & Europe: If you are an iOS user, please use this link to sign up to our TestFlight version of the app, so you can have a play around with the functionality and features: https://testflight.apple.com/join/fDG9hWng
By submitting this application, I confirm that all the information given by me in this application for employment and any additional documents attached hereto are true to the best of my knowledge and that I have not wilfully suppressed any material fact. I confirm I have disclosed if applicable any previous employment with Cleo AI. I accept that if any of the information given by me in this application is in any way false or incorrect, my application may be rejected, any offer of employment may be withdrawn or my employment with Cleo AI may be terminated summarily or I may be dismissed. By submitting this application, I agree that my personal data will be processed in accordance with Cleo AI's Candidate Privacy Notice
About Cleo
At Cleo, we're not just building another fintech app. We're embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity's relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper-intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That's the future we're creating.
Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast-growing unicorn with over $300 million in ARR and growing over 2x year-over-year. This isn't just a job; it's a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are not only at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact.
If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.
Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date with new product features and insights from the team.
About The Role
We're looking for an exceptional ML Engineering Manager to lead the Machine Learning efforts across our Growth team - the squad responsible for making smart, personalised decisions about what each of our 4M+ users sees, when they see it, and how we optimise for long-term value.
You'll manage a team of talented ML Engineers and collaborate with Marketing Engineers, Product Designers, PMs, and Data Scientists to build the systems that drive revenue growth while maximising lifetime value (LTV) for every single user. This is a high-impact role where you'll directly influence how we grow, retain, and monetise our user base.
The Growth team spans two squads: Growth Marketing (handling acquisition, channels, campaigns) and Growth Personalisation (handling on-app prompts, offers, and recommendations). Together, we maximise revenue while protecting long-term health.
What We're Building
- ML-powered prompt recommender systems that decide which offer or action to show each user
- Personalised messaging and incentive systems based on user context and history
- Incrementality testing to measure true causal lift from our interventions
- Multi-armed bandits and online learning to optimise in near real-time
- Scoring and ranking systems that balance short-term revenue with long-term retention
Lead ML Strategy & Delivery
- Own the ML roadmap for Growth, working with the PM and leadership to prioritise high-impact projects
- Lead the design and delivery of systems that personalise prompts, offers, and messaging to individual users
- Drive continuous improvement across ML models, from concept to experiment to production
- Recruit, onboard, and develop 3-5 ML Engineers (mix of IC and growing managers)
- Create a high-performing culture where people want to do their best work
- Balance mentorship with accountability - push the team to ship quality work quickly
- Support career growth and technical development; create clear pathways for levelling up
- Work closely with Growth Marketing Engineering on infrastructure, experimentation, and deployment
- Partner with Product on feature prioritisation and user experience design
- Engage Analytics on metrics, instrumentation, and incrementality testing
- Communicate ML impact clearly to leadership and across the business
- Review ML designs and code; ensure quality without becoming a bottleneck
- Guide architectural decisions on model serving, latency, scalability
- Maintain (and improve) the team's ML infrastructure and tooling
- Lead incident response when models or systems degrade in production
- Champion a test-driven approach to ML - we measure impact, not just accuracy
- Ensure robust experiment design, holdout groups, and statistical rigor
- Build a learning culture where failures are dissected and shared
- Publish learnings - both internally (to other teams) and externally
You're a strong technical leader with hands-on ML experience, particularly in areas like:
- Recommender systems & personalization - ranking models, candidate generation, multi-armed bandits, contextual decision-making
- Uplift modelling & incrementality testing - understanding causal impact and incremental lift
- Ad targeting & auction systems - optimising bidding, audience selection, and campaign performance
- Marketing mix modelling (MMM) - attribution, channel contribution, budget allocation
What Makes You a Good Fit
- Technical depth: You can code, debug, and review ML systems. You're not a pure manager, you're in the trenches with your team on high-impact projects.
- Growth mindset: You learn at speed, adapt quickly, and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions with data. You see every project as a chance to level up the team's capabilities.
- No bullshit: You're direct, honest, and pragmatic. You say what you mean and you mean what you say.
- Cross-functional leadership: You can translate between ML complexity and business impact. You collaborate naturally with PMs, Data Engineers, and Analytics - no silos.
- User-centric: You obsess over impact - not just model accuracy, but real-world outcomes like retention, revenue, and lifetime value.
- You've built recommender or ranking systems at scale - Spotify playlists, Netflix recommendations, Amazon product ranking, Pinterest pins, TikTok feed, Twitter/X timeline. That context is gold.
- You've done causal inference work - incrementality testing, uplift modelling, experimentation design. You understand the difference between correlation and causation.
- You've managed through hypergrowth - you've scaled a team, navigated process changes, and kept quality high while shipping at velocity.
- You have growth or marketing domain experience - you understand LTV, CAC, channel economics, attribution, and retention. You speak fluent "growth."
- You've open-sourced or published ML work - papers, blog posts, talks. You like to share knowledge.
Technical Experience
- 5+ years in ML/Data Science roles, with at least 2+ years in a leadership or senior technical IC capacity
- Hands-on experience shipping ML products end-to-end (not just notebooks) - ideally in personalisation, recommender systems, or growth
- Strong fundamentals in statistical inference, experimental design, and causal reasoning
- Production ML experience: model serving, latency optimisation, A/B testing, monitoring
- Comfortable with Python, SQL, and cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, etc.)
- Experience with typical ML stacks (scikit-learn, XGBoost, TensorFlow/PyTorch, or similar)
- Track record of building and scaling high-performing teams
- Comfortable hiring, onboarding, and developing engineers from L2 to L4+
- Experience giving technical feedback, code reviews, and architectural guidance
- Ability to balance autonomy with accountability - you know when to step in and when to empower
- Comfort navigating ambiguity and making decisions with incomplete information
- You genuinely care about impact - shipping models that drive real business outcomes, not just optimising metrics in isolation
- You're intellectually curious and humble - you don't have all the answers and you're excited to learn from your team
- You're a teacher and a learner - you enjoy helping others grow while continuing to develop your own skills
- You can operate effectively across technical and non-technical contexts - you translate for stakeholders without over-simplifying
- You have strong communication skills - you can explain complex ML concepts clearly, both to engineers and to non-technical partners
- Interview with a Recruiter (30 mins)
- Interview with the Hiring Manager (30 mins)
- Python Programming Interview (45 mins)
- Whiteboard Interview (60 mins)
- Management Skills Interview (60 mins)
- A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with 3-yearly reviews, aligned to our termly OKR planning cycles.
- The salary bandings for this position are: £150,000 - 170,000 London, Hybrid / £140,000 - 160,000 UK, Remote
- Work at one of the fastest-growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms, Balderton & EQT Ventures
- A clear progression plan. We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support.
- Flexibility. We can’t fight for the world’s financial health if we’re not healthy ourselves. We work with everyone to make sure they have the balance they need to do their best work.
- Work where you work best. We’re a globally distributed team. If you live in London we have a hybrid approach, we’d love you to spend one day a week or more in our beautiful office. If you’re outside of London, we’ll encourage you to spend a couple of days with us a few times per year. And we’ll cover your travel costs, naturally.
- Company-wide performance reviews every 4 months
- Generous pay increases for high-performing team members
- Equity top-ups for team members getting promoted
- 6% employer-matched pension in the UK
- 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo, up to 30 days)
- 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo
- We'll pay for your OpenAI subscription
- Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance
- Online mental health support via Spill
- Enhanced parental leave
- Workplace Nursery Scheme
- Regular socials and activities, online and in-person
- And many more!
App access for people in the UK & Europe: If you are an iOS user, please use this link to sign up to our TestFlight version of the app, so you can have a play around with the functionality and features: https://testflight.apple.com/join/fDG9hWng
By submitting this application, I confirm that all the information given by me in this application for employment and any additional documents attached hereto are true to the best of my knowledge and that I have not wilfully suppressed any material fact. I confirm I have disclosed if applicable any previous employment with Cleo AI. I accept that if any of the information given by me in this application is in any way false or incorrect, my application may be rejected, any offer of employment may be withdrawn or my employment with Cleo AI may be terminated summarily or I may be dismissed. By submitting this application, I agree that my personal data will be processed in accordance with Cleo AI's Candidate Privacy Notice
