About The Role
The Inbound team is the gateway to our marketplace. We build high-scale, automated systems that ensure every item entering our ecosystem is authentic and documented with high-fidelity digital listings. As the Applied Science Manager (ASM) for Inbound, you will lead a world-class team of scientists to solve complex problems in computer vision, natural language processing, and multi-modal learning. You will own the end-to-end lifecycle of our AI systems-from early-stage research and architectural design to global deployment and long-term maintenance. This is a high-impact leadership role requiring a blend of deep technical expertise and the ability to mentor a high-performing team in a fast-paced environment.
What You Get To Do Every Day
Lead the design, development, and deployment of scalable AI models that process millions of items with high precision and low latency.
Help define the long-term science roadmap for Inbound, ensuring our AI solutions remain at the cutting edge of authenticity verification and automated metadata extraction.
Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Business teams to translate business requirements and goals into precise, data-driven, and validated technical solutions.
Recruit, mentor, and retain a diverse team of Applied Scientists, fostering a culture of scientific rigor and iterative innovation.
Oversee the health and performance of production models, ensuring they remain performant as data distributions shift and business needs evolve.
Contribute to the company''s intellectual property and technical leadership through patents and publications at top-tier conferences and journals.
What You Bring To The Role
Minimum Requirements:
PhD or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
3+ years of industry experience directly managing a team of Applied Scientists or Applied Research Engineers.
5+ years of experience building and deploying large-scale machine learning models (e.g., Computer Vision, NLP, or Multimodal systems) into production.
Professional experience with Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
Proven ability to translate ambiguous business problems into technical roadmaps and deliver results through others.
Preferred Requirements:
Expertise in Computer Vision: deep knowledge of algorithms/techniques for Image Recognition, Object Detection, and/or Generative AI (LLMs/Diffusion models), specifically applied to product categorization or fraud detection.
Experience with cloud-based ML pipelines (e.g., AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI), handling of massive datasets, and design of experiments.
A strong publication record in top-tier conferences (e.g., CVPR, ICML, NeurIPS) or a history of significant patent contributions.
Experience working in e-commerce, logistics, or supply chain technology, with a focus on high-throughput "inbound" processing.
Ability to explain complex scientific concepts to non-technical stakeholders and executive leadership effectively.
Compensation, Benefits, + Perks
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
401K with Company Match
Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance
Paid Parental Leave
9 Paid Company Holidays
Flexible Time Off (With Manager Approval)
Find out more about our Benefits here.
The expected salary range for this role is $232,789.00-$264,375.00. To determine starting pay we carefully consider a variety of factors, including primary work location and an evaluation of a candidate's skills, experience, market demands, and internal parity. Additionally, salary is just one component of TRR's total rewards package. Depending on role, employees may also be eligible for a bonus program, incentive pay and benefits.
The RealReal is the world's largest online marketplace for authenticated, resale luxury goods, with 37 million members. With a rigorous authentication process overseen by experts, The RealReal provides a safe and reliable platform for consumers to buy and sell their luxury