Data Scientist II, Monetization & Pricing

Thumbtack

THUMBTACK HELPS MILLIONS OF PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY CARE FOR THEIR HOMES. Thumbtack is the one app you need to take care of and improve your home — from personalized guidance to AI tools and a best-in-class hiring experience. Every day in every county of the U.S., people turn to Thumbtack to complete urgent repairs, seasonal maintenance and bigger improvements. We help homeowners know which projects to do, when to do them and who to hire from our growing community of 300,000 local service businesses. If making an impact inspires you, join us. Imagine what we’ll build together. ABOUT THE DATA SCIENCE TEAM The Data Science team empowers Thumbtack to use data to guide business decisions. We collaborate with partners across the company to solve the most analytically challenging problems -- everything from informing how we set prices across almost a thousand local services categories, to evaluating the impact of a new business model on company performance, to identifying early predictors of high-quality customers. We are a tight-knit, intellectually curious team that is committed to improving Thumbtack and improving each other. ABOUT THE ROLE Data Scientists at Thumbtack are empowered early on to leverage their critical thinking, interpersonal, and technical skills to make a positive impact on the company. Data Scientist embed with product teams to support new product feature launches, study the economics of our massive and dynamic marketplace, and help inform strategy. As a Data Scientist, you’ll be the person responsible for all the analytical needs of an entire team of engineers, designers, and product/marketing managers -- helping empower the team and Thumbtack more broadly to build the best product, as quickly as possible. WHAT YOU'LL DO * Propose and conduct quantitative research into key user behaviors, product flows, and business trends; based on analysis and in collaboration with cross-functional partners, identify potential new opportunities and next steps for the product team * Design and analyze experiments and other tests for causal inference, in collaboration with engineers, applied scientists, and economists * Partner with product managers, engineers, etc. to help scope new features, e.g., scenario modeling for possible impact on key metrics, make recommendations on business logic of new features, etc. * Define and monitor key metrics; investigate changes in metrics and propose next steps * Develop topic area expertise, e.g., develop a deep understanding of how Thumbtack search works and interacts with other systems * Contribute to our team and company data culture through accessible data table design and maintenance * Collaborate with, mentor, and help recruit team members IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL, YOU MUST BRING * 2+ years of experience in data science, analytics or economics * Experience managing stakeholders with competing priorities in areas such as Product Management, Design, Engineering and Marketing * Experience scoping, analyzing, and communicating results of experiments * Expert in SQL * Strong communication skills and ability to build strong relationships cross-functionally and with leadership * Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral degree in a technical area such as: Statistics, Engineering, Analytics, Math, Computer Science, Operations Research, Economics EXPECTED SALARY RANGES * For candidates living in San Francisco / Bay Area, San Jose, New York City, or Seattle metros, the expected salary range for the role is currently $164,900 - $213,400. * For candidates living in Austin, TX or Washington DC metros or in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Washington states, the expected salary range for the role is currently $148,800 - $192,500. * For candidates living in all other US locations, the expected salary range for this role is currently $140,300 - $181,500. Actual offered salaries will vary and will be based on various factors, such as calibrated job level, qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Actual offered salaries will vary and will be based on various factors, such as calibrated job level, qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Thumbtack embraces diversity. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial, state, or local law. We also will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable law. Thumbtack is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a medical condition or disability during any part of the application process, please contact: recruitingops@thumbtack.com. For information about how Thumbtack collects, uses, and shares personal information about job applicants, please see our Job Applicant Privacy Policy. We put as much craftsmanship into candidate safety as we do into the hiring experience itself. While scammers may try to impersonate our team, we’ll never ask you for money, banking info, or SSNs during hiring. Check out our blueprint on how to spot the fakes.

Toast

Toast is driven by building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. Toast is revolutionizing the way the restaurant industry does business by pairing technology with an extraordinary commitment to customer success. We help restaurants streamline operations, increase revenue, and deliver amazing guest experiences through our platform that combines restaurant point of sale, guest-facing technology, and award-winning customer support. Join us as we empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive. Bready* to make a change? The Toast AI Engineering team is seeking a Data Scientist to embed data science capabilities into the Toast platform by partnering with engineers and product managers to develop statistical and machine learning models that power key product lines. About this Roll* (Responsibilities): * Apply a diverse set of expertise including data mining, statistical analysis and machine learning to deliver impactful, objective, and actionable data insights that enable informed business and product decisions * Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including sales, marketing, and product, to identify business opportunities and develop data-driven solutions that drive growth and engagement. * Partner with line of business teams and collaborate with product managers, engineers and data scientists to foster data-driven decisions that yield significant impacts  * Able to effectively communicate analysis, insights and recommendations to high-level business partners in verbal, visual and written formats * Thrive in a dynamic and rapidly evolving environment Do you have the right ingredients* (Requirements)? * Bachelors in computer science, engineering, math, statistics, economics, or other quantitative discipline; Masters preferred. * 2+ years of data science experience in an industry environment. * Have solid statistical and machine learning foundations. Familiar with machine learning concepts (e.g. regression/classification, clustering, offline/online model evaluation).  * Experience with advanced machine learning techniques, including supervised and unsupervised learning, graph algorithms, deep learning (e.g., NLP), recommendation systems, and generative AI. * Experience with Python and SQL, and ML frameworks (e.g. scikit-learn, Tensorflow, PyTorch) * Experience with cloud solutions, preferably with AWS tooling (e.g. SageMaker, DynamoDB, Athena, Glue, etc.) * Experience with model workflow orchestration tool (e.g. Airflow) * Experience collaborating with engineers, product managers, and other cross-functional teams * Excellent verbal and written communication skills * Ability to communicate sophisticated quantitative analysis in a clear, precise, and actionable manner. Special Sauce* (Nice to Haves):  * Experience working on LLM applications, including prompting, RAG, and evaluation. * Experience in software engineering best practices and tools including object-oriented programming, test-driven development, CI/CD, git, shell scripting, task orchestration. * Experience shipping machine learning systems in production environments. * Experience in A/B testing and other experimentation methodologies for effective product launch measurement.   AI at Toast At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture. Our Total Rewards Philosophy  We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits. The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions if eligible), equity, and benefits. You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy. Zone A $112,000—$179,000 USD Zone B $97,000—$155,000 USD Zone C $87,000—$139,000 USD How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring Our Approach to Hybrid Working We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the hospitality community, regardless of location. Please visit the Locations page on our career site to learn more about our in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse, and we embrace that diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design, we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences. We Thrive Together We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally, check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast. Apply today! Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com. ------ For roles in the United States, it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Instacart

We're transforming the grocery industry At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers. Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table. Instacart is a Flex First team There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work. Overview The Search & Personalization ML team is Instacart’s engine for state-of-the-art multi-task, multi-objective ranking—unifying search, discovery, recommendation, ads, and merchandising into a single value-aware platform. Partnering with world-class engineers, scientists, and PMs, we build the ranking backbone that powers every pixel of the shopping journey, optimizing not just for clicks, but for incremental GTV, basket lift, and retention over the long run. What We’re Building * Foundational Ranking Backbone Models: Multi-task/multi-objective models (shared encoders + task heads) that jointly learn relevance, conversion, margin contribution, churn risk, and ad quality, enabling consistent decisions across search and recommendations. * Value-Aware Optimization: Uplift and long-horizon value models that steer decisions toward incrementality and LTV, with calibrated constraints on quality, diversity, fairness, and spend pacing—plus guardrails for safe exploration. * LLM-Enhanced Retrieval & Features: Using LLMs to enrich query and item semantics for long-tail recall, generate features for cold-starts, and feed the ranker with reasoning-rich context, while remaining the source of truth for final ordering. Our commitment to AI innovation is reflected in our recent publications and research contributions to the field.   About the Job * Architect the ranking backbone that unifies query understanding, personalization, multi-objective ranking, ads, and merchandising into a single adaptive platform. * Design and build a search autosuggest system optimized for personalization and value-based relevance. * Design long-horizon objective functions (e.g., incrementality, LTV, habit formation) and build uplift/causal value models that move beyond short-term engagement. * Develop production-grade Multi-Task Learning (e.g., shared encoders, MMOE/PLE task heads) to jointly learn relevance, propensity, margin, and churn risk—ensuring calibration, constraints, and explainability. * Own the inference layer: goal-aware re-rankers, diversity and quality constraints, safe exploration, and millisecond-class latency optimization. * Advance evaluation practices: online experiments, long-horizon cohort metrics, counterfactual evaluations, and attribution pipelines for tracking incremental GTV and retention. * Partner across ads, infrastructure, product, and design teams to translate business goals into ranking policies and measurable ROI. * Mentor ML engineers to build expertise in ranking, causal inference, and scalable serving systems.   About You Minimum Qualifications * 5+ years applying ML at scale (3+ years in technical leadership), with a proven track record improving ranking or recommendation systems in production. * Demonstrated success in applying multi-objective or constrained optimization to balance relevance, revenue, margin, and user experience; experience with online testing and attribution beyond CTR. * Strong coding (Python) and data fluency (SQL/Pandas), with expertise in classic ML techniques (e.g., XGBoost) and deep learning frameworks (TensorFlow/PyTorch). * Excellent analytical skills and strong cross-functional communication abilities. Preferred Qualifications * Expertise in multi-task learning architectures (e.g., MMOE/PLE, shared encoders), calibration, counterfactual evaluation, uplift/causal modeling, and/or contextual bandits for exploration. * Experience building low-latency ranking services, including feature stores, caching, vector + lexical retrieval, re-ranking, and A/B testing infrastructure, with expertise in constraint-aware inference. * Hands-on experience with LLMs as feature/recall enhancers (e.g., embeddings, adapter tuning) while maintaining clarity on when the ranker should arbitrate. Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here. Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here. For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below. CA, NY, CT, NJ $207,000—$253,500 USD WA $198,000—$243,000 USD OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI $190,000—$233,000 USD All other states $173,000—$212,000 USD