# And Ozbay > AI/ML & Experimentation Leader Location: San Jose, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/and • Results driven professional who blends management expertise with technical proficiency and business acumen to drive data driven decision making • Proven track record in Experimentation, Recommendations, Ads Delivery, Ads Interfaces, Marketplace Optimization and Pricing • Experience in scaling data science and data engineering teams by recruiting the best talent; developing individual contributors and managers; and crafting a culture that focuses on research, innovation, quality, commitment, execution and fun • Expertise in various analytical domains: Machine learning, econometrics, big data, experimentation and operations research ## Work Experience ### Head of Search and Recommendations ML Engineering @ Quizlet Jan 2025 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States * Own Search, Recommendations and Ads personalization across all Quizlet surfaces, with direct accountability for improving engagement, retention and monetization. * Build and scale the core content and user understanding systems that drive relevance, ranking and personalization across the product. ### Adjunct Faculty @ Portland State University Jan 2025 – Present | San Jose, California, United States * Teach graduate-level courses in Generative AI Foundations, covering large language models, embeddings, RAG architectures, agentic workflows and fine-tuning, with an emphasis on practical no-code and low-code implementation. * Teach Operations Research, focused on decision modeling, optimization and applied quantitative methods for real-world business problems. * Deliver applied AI workshops for technical and non-technical audiences. * Mentor professionals in leveraging quantitative methods and emerging AI capabilities to address complex strategic and operational challenges. ### Founder / Consultant @ Unknown Jan 2024 – Jan 2025 | San Jose, CA * Engaged with high-potential startups to capitalize on GenAI’s transformative potential. Led efforts to scale engineering infrastructure, integrate AI/ML and GenAI and shape product strategy for sustainable growth. * Led AI/ML for airrived.ai, a GenAI-driven cybersecurity startup that automates key workflows for cybersecurity professionals. Built the entire backend for the no-code platform that enables users to create and deploy agents and agentic workflows that undertake complex cybersecurity tasks. ### Director, Experimentation Platform & Science (and Head of Recommendations Platform & Science) @ Etsy Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco Bay Area * Led the Experimentation Platform & Science organization, managing managers across data science, ML engineering, data engineering and software engineering. * Also led the Recommendations Platform & Science team, overseeing the systems and content that power the recommendation modules on etsy.com. ### Head of DS/ML, Ads & Shopping @ Pinterest Jan 2018 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area * Head of Machine Learning and Experimentation for Ads (Ads Quality, Advertiser Interfaces, Advertiser Growth) and Shopping teams, supporting both sides of Pinterest's two-sided marketplace. * Responsible for modeling, insights generation, metrics development, experimentation and ad hoc analysis. * Hired exceptional leaders and individual contributors and scaled the team's productivity. * Worked closely with Product, Engineering, Sales and Design to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of all revenue driving site activities. ### Director of Engineering, Machine Learning @ Groupon Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Palo Alto, CA * Head of machine learning for Groupon’s biggest vertical; Local. The team focused on: Machine learning, inferential modeling, deal level experimentation and data engineering. * Changed the engagement model of the team from being a resource pool that provides on-demand models and analyses to being critical partners to product managers and engineers, contributing to the process from ideation through deployment of strategic projects. Spearheaded experimentation, pricing, supply and NLP initiatives. * Founded the deal level experimentation team and unlocked the ability to run deal level A/B tests that cannot be run at the user level (e.g. pricing tests). Implemented industry best practices to reduce noise, time to statistical significance and repeated measurement errors. * Championed fundamental changes in pricing and supply domains. Completely redesigned the approach for lead scoring and prioritization. Shifted sales efforts from cannibalistic to incremental supply. Ideated a pricing optimization framework that determines optimal prices under various constraints. * Worked with HR to recruit the best talent to grow the team. Created the local vertical data science career ladder that is now adopted by all other verticals at Groupon. Minimized attrition by creating an environment where individuals had opportunities to show leadership, continuously learn and grow. ### VP of AI/ML @ Nomis Solutions Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area * As a member of the executive leadership team, contributed to Nomis’ objective of becoming a SaaS company by shaping the organization’s new machined learned model based product development strategies. * Drove organization-wide consensus on the mission of the machine learning team and established the success metrics to measure progress. * Worked with HR to recruit the best talent to grow the team. Minimized attrition by creating an environment where individuals had opportunities to show leadership, continuously learn and grow. * Championed the efforts to improve the price response modeling methodology that improved the noise tolerance of the models and to revamp the data infrastructure by moving from customer specific, Hadoop/Hive based data pipelines to a Spark based, service oriented, scripting platform that cut implementation time by 50%. * Established the rapid prototype development (RPD) practice as a quick and inexpensive approach to showcase new and innovative data product ideas. Overcame the initial resistance from the organization by demonstrating benefits. ### Head of Core Data Science / Machine Learning for Global CRM @ eBay Inc Jan 2011 – Jan 2015 Customer Insights and Analytics: * Managed a team of geographically distributed data scientists supporting the global CRM function. * Responsible for the global CRM data science project pipeline. Worked closely with global business and technology partners to identify, develop and implement targeting improvements across various internet marketing channels that led to $90M/year incremental revenue. * Developed and implemented a modeling methodology that modifies decision trees for uplift modeling (patent pending). The method led to a 150% increase in incremental conversions over existing segmentation / targeting approaches (actual A/B test results). * Built a recommendation engine (loosely based on collaborative filtering) for the e-mail marketing group. In production and and targets 7M to 10M users weekly. * Led the development of the first successful product category level propensity to buy model. Scores from the model are used to customize content on the website, including watched items and billboard, which show 100% CTR and 20% attributed purchase rate improvement. * Improved A/B test designs that resulted in roughly 30% more tests reaching significance. eBay Research Labs: * Worked on research projects that analyze long term effects of internet marketing CRM - Experimentation: * Scaled the ability to execute and measure concurrent experiments by building an experimentation platform EU Pricing: * Played a pivotal role in developing fundamental B2C pricing changes for eBay EU Buyer Experience: * Worked with the development team to test and deploy the newly developed machined learned ranking algorithm to the production site * Developed a new method to identify which product categories to promote given a search phrase Internet Marketing: * Improved partner payment efficiency by 30% by developing a new CPC model that utilizes machine learning ### Credit Risk Manager @ SunTrust Bank Jan 2009 – Jan 2011 ### AVP - Management Metrics Analyst @ Wells Fargo Bank Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 ### Product Manager @ Wilshire Credit Corp. / Merrill Lynch Jan 2005 – Jan 2008 ### Lead Operations Analyst @ Wells Fargo Bank Jan 2003 – Jan 2004 ### Software Designer @ Performance Logic, Inc. Jan 2000 – Jan 2001 ## Education ### PhD in Systems Science Portland State University ### MS in Engineering and Technology Management Portland State University ### MS in Systems Engineering Boğaziçi University ### BS in Industrial Engineering (CS Minor) Boğaziçi University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/andozbay --- Source: https://flows.cv/and JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/and/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05