Search and enjoy: meet Wolt’s Machine Learning Engineer Sowmya

Wolt wouldn’t be where it is today – over 50 million users in 30+ countries – without being able to make sense of massive amounts of data and turn it into fast, relevant, and personalized results for each customer.

Think of it as finding a needle in a very large, and rapidly growing digital haystack. It’s no small feat, and we found someone who knows all about it. If you’ll forgive the pun, the search is over!

Meet Sowmya, a Machine Learning Engineer in Wolt’s Applied Science team. Her career has taken her from India to the US to Germany, and now into the heart of Wolt’s search experience. She shares how she joined Wolt, what “Wolt Grade” means, and what it’s like to help millions of people find exactly what they’re craving.

We’re also hiring, so maybe your (job) search could be over as well? 

Hello 👋 Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Wolt.

“Hi! I’m Sowmya. I’m originally from Hyderabad, India, but have lived in Germany for the last seven years and am currently based in Stuttgart. I work as a Machine Learning Engineer in the Consumer Search team and have been with Wolt for about 1.5 years.”

So, what did your pre-Wolt career path look like?

“I didn’t actually study computer science in university. My degree was in mathematics with a focus on mechanical engineering, but computer science piqued my interest early on. That curiosity led me to internships and projects in tech, and eventually to a Master’s degree in computer science in the US, specializing in machine learning.

After graduating, I moved to Germany and joined a startup called Gopuff. I started off as a data scientist, then moved to machine learning and other roles. It’s the kind of career development you would expect in a startup and I got a lot of learning experience, which I really enjoyed. 

Eventually, I wanted to grow my skills further and work on products that have a bigger impact, and that’s what led me to Wolt.”

How did you get your start at Wolt?

“I used the Wolt app all the time while living in Berlin! And when I heard about the role, I happened to be looking for new opportunities. It felt like perfect timing.

Before applying, I did some background research on Wolt. I read the tech blogs and watched several Tech Talks on YouTube. It was really interesting as they opened up how they work and collaborate. Seeing how engineers approach problem solving also gave me a peek into the culture.

Since joining, one thing that’s stood out is how much focus we put on building what we call ‘Wolt-grade’ products — where user experience and quality is the number one priority. It’s inspiring to see that mindset built into every step of the process.”

Grade! I mean great! Tell us about the Applied Science team! 

“Our Applied Science team brings AI and machine learning into Wolt’s products. We make sure that through ML, our features deliver what users expect and more.

The team is a mix of applied scientists, ML engineers, and leads distributed across different product areas. In my case, I work in the search team to improve user experience, making sure people find what they’re looking for quickly and easily on our app.

For example, when someone searches for the best Margherita pizza, we want to make sure that we are showing the most relevant, personalized results – perhaps a restaurant they’ve ordered from before or one rated highly by other users. We gather app usage data, build retrieval engines, and rank results so users can discover what they want in seconds.”

What does a regular day look like for you?

“We work in cross-functional teams made up of product managers, engineers, and applied scientists. Before coding, we spend time aligning on requirements, implementation details, and model strategy.

My team is spread across Finland, Sweden, and Germany, so while I work remotely from Stuttgart, I travel often to meet the team. The cross-functional setup means you’re constantly learning from different perspectives.”

What are some of the challenging or cool projects you’ve worked on?

“With Wolt operating in more than 30 countries, our search engine serves millions of users across very different markets.

As we expand in the retail sector and onboard new vendors, we need to surface new items while still delivering personalized, frustration-free results. Language diversity adds another layer of complexity, so we continuously fine-tune our models to capture local nuances and behaviors.

At Wolt, we leverage large language models and AI in unique ways to create a truly Wolt-grade experience. From personalizing search results to helping users discover new restaurants and venues, we use these technologies to make every interaction smarter, faster, and more relevant.

Right now, I’m working on a major project to completely revamp the search experience for Wolt users. It touches everything from UI updates and new APIs to developing semantic search that understands meaning and context, not just keywords.

It’s a cross-functional effort involving around 10–15 people — product managers, designers, front-end and back-end engineers, and more. Leading the project has stretched my skills beyond machine learning and helped me see the bigger picture.

It has been intense, but in a good way. It’s been a massive undertaking and an incredible team effort. I’ve had a really great experience.”

What’s it like working at Wolt?

“Projects like these show how Wolt gives you opportunities to shine and test yourself in the areas you want to grow in. The challenges I’ve been given have helped me understand what my strengths and weaknesses are, and helped me grow technically, professionally and personally. My colleagues and the environment we work in all supports that growth. 

My colleagues come from all kinds of backgrounds, but everyone shares the same collaborative spirit. We all take ownership of our work, and of the product as a whole. Collective ownership means everyone is approachable. If there’s a problem, we’re all hands-on to solve it. It makes day-to-day working more enjoyable and you don’t feel like you’re working in a silo, even if you’re working remotely like me.

I also want to mention how we do knowledge sharing within the company. We do a lot of demo sessions here. For example, engineering teams hold biweekly demos where teams present the products they have been working on and the Applied Science team has monthly demos where we go deeper into the implementation details of our models or the machine learning systems that we have developed.

Within my team, we have weekly sessions where we discuss initial ideas and iterations of the products we are developing. It has been a great opportunity to learn and grow together.”

Sharing is indeed caring! So, who should apply to the Applied Science team?

“I come back to this over and over again, but for me what stands out in the company is the collaborative spirit. This is so important when you are working in such diverse and large teams. It’s not just about technical skills; you need to communicate properly and be able to collaborate efficiently with everyone. 

You need to be open-minded and ready to take on challenges and risks, to not be constrained by your expertise but be willing to explore beyond what you know and grow through that process. Don’t be shy!”

Does working on a global product get you excited? Does the high-ownership and collaborative environment at Wolt sound like a place for you? Check out our open engineering roles.