Systems and techniques are provided for template exploration in a large-scale machine learning system. A method may include obtaining multiple base templates, each base template comprising multiple features. A template performance score may be obtained for each base template and a first base template may be selected from among the multiple base templates based on the template performance score of the first base template. Multiple cross-templates may be constructed by generating a cross-template of the selected first base template and each of the multiple base templates. Performance of a machine learning model may be tested based on each cross-template to generate a cross-template performance score for each of the cross-templates. A first cross-template may be selected from among the multiple cross-templates based on the cross-template performance score of the cross-template. Accordingly, the first cross-template may be added to the machine learning model.