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Meet Chris — Coupang Play Machine Learning Engineer

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7.13 Chris Interview 1 화면 대외비에 해당 안 되는 것으로 확인

Coupang Play team has many talents from various fields working together to provide fun, engaging, and various content to our customers. For this, machine learning is an indispensable core technology. Coupang Play’s machine learning engineers create the process of discovering content that is relevant to the taste and interests of our customers.  

Coupang Play’s machine learning sector has interesting challenges ahead, and we’ve met with Chris, who is building Coupang Play’s machine learning system after joining Coupang recently, to learn about his experience so far. 

  

Hello Chris, can you briefly tell us about yourself? 

Hi, I’m Chris and I currently work as a Machine Learning Engineer at Coupang Play. I oversee building customized systems for each person based on machine learning so that the viewers can find content more easily and conveniently. I’ve joined Coupang only recently, but I’ve been finding it interesting here.  

 

Could you tell us about your career path before joining Coupang Play?  

I worked at a security control company, developing attack detection platforms based on machine learning. As a machine learning developer, I led many projects for about seven years and contributed to protecting a myriad of Korean companies from cyber-attacks.  

  

It’s interesting that you moved from the security domain to the OTT (Over The Top) domain. How did you get interested in this field? Also, what made you apply?  

The longer I worked in the machine learning field, the more I grew a craving for creating technology that can be used by more customers. The company I worked for before provided B2B services and thus, I could not fully satisfy my wants. On the other hand, the fact that OTT service is a domain that provides services all day to many customers was interesting for me. In addition, I also thought that it had endless potential after reading that machine learning is creating value worth trillions of won in many OTT platforms and this made me decide to apply.  

  

How was the process of familiarizing yourself with the OTT service domain? 

At first, I felt a bit frustrated as OTT service was a completely new domain. Therefore, I studied OTT service domains, including Coupang Play, before joining the company. I remember striving to analyze this domain from the perspective of a developer, not a consumer.  

Nonetheless, familiarizing myself with the work was not hard. It was only the difference in the direction in how the technology, machine learning, is used, not the source technology, and most of all, many of the members of Coupang Play helped me. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to them.  

  

Now we would like to hear about your new journey you started in Coupang Play. What do you do in Coupang Play?  

I oversee the immediate and near future functionality needs of Coupang Play for machine learning. I am also responsible for content search functions and ranking optimization. I “Dive Deep” into many fields and develop for our customers so that Coupang Play customers can have access to the content they want to watch.  

Could you tell us about your most interesting work Coupang Play? 

I found machine learning-based personalized recommendations the most interesting. We are building a feature that shows each user the most optimized content first by analyzing Coupang Play customers’ preferences. We are designing a machine learning engine that can selectively choose content that customers may enjoy so that they do not have to look through an enormous quantity of content available on Coupang Play: one by one by themselves. We are also preparing to enhance the accuracy and scope of searches so that customers can spend more of their valuable time viewing content.  

 

How do machine learning engineers at Coupang Play work with those in different roles? Do you have your own tips for working with others? 

Machine learning development requires a significant amount and variety of data, so I get to work with people in exceptionally diverse fields. In addition, as often with development positions, I sometimes get to join an existing service that has already been developed. In this case, I occasionally find it challenging to understand and adapt to the work that others have already developed.  

Here is my tip: when there is something you don’t know, don’t feel embarrassed about it, but ask people around you right away. Every developer has experienced not knowing something, and not knowing something isn’t a bad thing. And everyone at Coupang is kind and answers questions in a warm manner, so it is better to ask people around you and start contributing to the team sooner than to waste your time trying to figure it all out by yourself.  

 

What are the three capabilities needed to work as a machine learning engineer at Coupang Play? 

What matters most is knowledge of machine learning. As I already said, Coupang Play seeks to use machine learning for a significant number of things in the future, so the more machine learning skills you know that are just right for different needs, the easier your job will become.  

Being imaginative is the second most important capability. I think we can use our imagination in diverse ways here, for example, thinking about what to provide in what way to win customers’ love for our services, how to use machine learning for a feature that no one has ever even thought about, or how my contribution will impact our services as a whole. An out-of-box thinking engineer would be most welcome.  

Lastly, you need passion and persistence. Even if you planned an excellent feature based on a deep understanding of machine learning and an expansive imagination, it takes enormous persistence to take the feature to the very end and produce the best outcome. There are so many ideas, but it is also so many times that I saw a lot of them just end up coming to nothing. I think the passion for bringing the development you desire to completion and delivering it to our customers is a trait that sets the best developers apart from good ones.  

 

Do you have goals you made when joining Coupang Play? 

There is a slogan at Coupang that we want to create a world in which our customers ask, “How did I ever live without Coupang?” My goal is also to hear people at Coupang Play say, “How did I ever live without machine learning?” I aim to build a machine learning system that can help people within the Coupang Play organization as well as customers.  

 

Please share with us what you would like to say to those who want to take on a new challenge at Coupang Play as a machine learning engineer like you? 

There are unlimited opportunities in the field of machine learning at Coupang Play. I really want to work with people who want to pioneer a new path through machine learning. Extraordinarily exciting projects await you, and I don’t think there are many companies that you can contribute to as a machine learning engineer while also getting help from for your growth.  

 

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Coupang Play is rising to new challenges with people who have gained diverse experiences at home and abroad. If you want to make technology-driven innovations and experience endless opportunities for growth, please apply right now.