Research Scientist, Recommendation Systems

About Hook

Hook is a social music platform, backed by top-tier investors, building the next generation of music discovery, fan expression, and creator growth. We turn the songs people love into sounds they can play with, enabling fans and creators to reimagine music through intuitive, remix-friendly experiences with zero learning curve. By partnering directly with artists, labels, and rightsholders, Hook ensures music is discovered, shared, and expressed in ways that respect and reward the people behind it. At Hook, music isn’t just consumed.

It’s experienced, expressed, and made personal.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Research Scientist to design, develop, and advance state-of-the-art recommendation systems that power personalized user experiences at scale. In this role, you will conduct applied research, translate theoretical insights into production-ready models, and partner closely with engineering and product to drive measurable impact.

You’ll work on problems such as ranking, personalization, user modeling, exploration-exploitation, and representation learning, using real-world data and user-generated content.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and evaluate machine learning models for recommendation, ranking, and personalization
• Conduct applied research to improve model quality, robustness, and efficiency
• Develop and execute experimentation strategies using offline evaluation and online testing
• Work with complex datasets to understand user behavior and system performance
• Collaborate with engineering and product teams to transition research into production systems
• Share research results in clear, accessible ways with both technical and non-technical audiences
• Stay informed about advances in recommendation systems and related ML methodologies

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (PhD or MS) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Experience developing recommendation, ranking, or personalization models for user-generated content.
• Strong foundation in machine learning, statistics, and data analysis
• Proficiency in Python and modern ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch)
• Ability to conduct independent research and collaborate effectively in team environments
• Bonus Qualifications
• Prior publications or submissions to RecSys or closely related venues
• Experience working with large-scale data and computational systems
• Experience with representation learning, sequence modeling, or large-scale optimization
• Experience transitioning research prototypes into production systems

What We Offer

Opportunity to shape product direction through data and cutting-edge research

Freedom to shape research direction and problem selection

Work closely with teammates across research, engineering, and product as the organization grows.

Support for continued learning and professional growth

Competitive compensation and benefits