Machine Learning Contract Jobs in Union, NJ (NOW HIRING)

VERSANT (Nasdaq: VSNT) is an industry-changing media and entertainment business and home to trusted brands that shape culture, inform audiences, and build lasting connections. It operates across four core markets: political news and opinion, business news and personal finance, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. These markets are served through a powerful portfolio of iconic and innovative brands, including CNBC, MS NOW, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Versant's sports division USA Sports, along with complementary digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and GolfPass.

Versant is seeking an experienced Contract Technology Recruiter to help build critical technology, data, AI, and product capabilities across a rapidly evolving organization.

This is a hands-on role for a recruiter who combines deep technical recruiting experience, advanced sourcing expertise, and strong consultative stakeholder management. You will recruit specialized and difficult-to-find talent while serving as a trusted advisor to hiring leaders—helping them understand the talent market, calibrate requirements, and develop effective strategies for building their teams.

What You’ll Do

• Recruit specialized technology talent across software engineering, data engineering, AI/machine learning, analytics/data science, infrastructure/platform, and product, with searches ranging from individual contributor through senior leadership levels.
• Lead advanced sourcing strategies for difficult-to-find talent. Proactively identify and engage passive candidates using LinkedIn Recruiter, GitHub, Boolean/X-ray search, talent and market mapping, targeted communities, networking, referrals, and other creative sourcing approaches.
• Serve as a consultative talent advisor to hiring managers and senior leaders. Lead intake and calibration discussions around role requirements, must-have versus trainable skills, talent availability, target companies, level, compensation, and realistic hiring expectations.
• Bring market intelligence into hiring decisions. Use sourcing results, candidate feedback, competitive intelligence, compensation considerations, and talent-market data to challenge assumptions and recommend changes to search strategy or role requirements when appropriate.
• Own the full recruiting lifecycle from intake and sourcing through assessment, interview, offer, and close while managing approximately 15–25 concurrent requisitions and maintaining a strong candidate and stakeholder experience.
• Build strong stakeholder relationships across hiring managers, HR, Compensation, interview teams, and recruiting partners through proactive communication, clear expectations, frequent updates, and early identification of risks or challenges.

What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, with significant experience recruiting complex technology talent.
• Exceptional advanced-sourcing capability and a demonstrated track record of identifying and engaging passive, specialized, and difficult-to-find technical candidates.
• Recruiting experience across multiple technical disciplines, particularly software engineering and data engineering, with exposure to AI/ML, analytics/data science, infrastructure/platform, and product talent.
• Enough technical recruiting fluency to understand and discuss skills such as SQL, Python, APIs, infrastructure, data architecture, AI, and machine learning and distinguish meaningful candidate experience beyond keyword matching.
• Strong consultative stakeholder-management skills, including the confidence to influence and appropriately challenge hiring managers using talent-market evidence and recruiting expertise.
• Ability to operate autonomously, prioritize across a high-volume portfolio, and bring a strong sense of urgency, ownership, and follow-through to difficult searches.
• Experience working in both agency and in-house recruiting environments is preferred; candidates with primarily in-house experience should demonstrate comparable sourcing rigor, pace, urgency, and results orientation.
• Strong communication, relationship-management, and organizational skills, with the ability to adapt quickly as priorities and hiring needs change.

Compensation Range: $45-$75 USD / Hour

Additional Requirements

Role may be performed remotely or from a Versant office in New York, NY; Englewood Cliffs, NJ; or Orlando, FL.

Must have unrestricted work authorization to work in the U.S. Contract duration and terms will be discussed during the interview process.

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with a VERSANT Media employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. VERSANT Media's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to candidateaccessibility@versantmedia.com.

VERSANT Media is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. We include a good faith pay range for each position to comply with applicable state and local pay transparency laws and to promote equity across our organization. Actual compensation will be based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, experience, and location and may include additional forms of compensation and benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, etc.

VERSANT Media is not accepting unsolicited assistance from search firms for this employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at VERSANT via-email, the Internet, or in any form and/or method without a valid written Statement of Work in place for this position from VERSANT's Talent Acquisition team will be deemed the sole property of VERSANT. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by VERSANT as a result of the referral or through other means.