Senior Principal Applied Scientist

About the role

The Size & Fit team at Zalando is building AI‑driven solutions that help millions of shoppers find the right size and fit online. As a Senior Principal Applied Scientist you will lead cutting‑edge research and production‑scale deployments that directly impact customer satisfaction and return rates.

Key responsibilities

• Drive scientific excellence in computer vision and machine learning by fostering rigorous peer review and knowledge sharing.
• Partner with product, design and engineering to translate ambiguous business goals into technical road‑maps, MVPs and scalable solutions.
• Lead research on state‑of‑the‑art techniques such as GANs, diffusion models, NeRFs and 3D reconstruction, and encourage publication in top conferences.
• Implement robust MLOps processes to ensure reliability, repeatability and agility of deployed models.
• Mentor junior and senior scientists, provide performance feedback and support their professional growth.

Required profile

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Vision or a related field with 5+ years of post‑doctoral industry or academic experience.
• Proven track record of taking large‑scale ML applications from research to production, including data processing, model deployment and monitoring.
• Strong publication record in venues such as CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, ICLR or ICML.
• Excellent English communication skills for both technical peers and senior leadership.

Required skills

• Python programming
• PyTorch and modern ML frameworks
• Computer vision techniques (GANs, diffusion models, 3D vision, NeRF, Gaussian splatting)
• Experience with MLOps and production deployment of AI models

What we offer

• Employee shares program and up to 40% discount on fashion and beauty products
• Hybrid working model with up to 60% remote flexibility
• 25 days of vacation, health and wellbeing options, and mental health support
• Opportunities for continuous learning through training platforms and peer‑to‑peer reviews