Lead Data Scientist, Operations

About the Commercial Operations Data Science Team

Thumbtack’s Ops Data Science team is a tight-knit group charged with providing actionable insights for Thumbtack’s Sales Operations, Product Operations, Customer Service Operations, Trust and Safety, Enablement and QA teams. We collaborate with various groups across the company on a wide variety of projects; everything from click-level data from our online HelpCenter, to call-level data from our outbound sales teams, to search- and conversation-level data between pros and customers from our product database. The Commercial Operations Data Science team is part of a global team of more than 40 data scientists across the United States and Canada.

About the Role 

As a Lead Data Scientist, you’ll partner with leaders in Thumbtack’s Customer Service and Product Operations teams, as well as other operations groups, to shape strategy and build robust data infrastructure. This role requires an emphasis on leveraging best-in-class data science and analytics methods to deliver actionable insights as well as designing and building scalable source-of-truth infrastructure to support data-driven decision-making for Customer Service, Sales, and Product Operations. You’ll be a proactive contributor driving impact through data warehousing, pipeline development, and analytic frameworks.

You will support Thumbtack’s Customer Service team by enabling better tracking of service performance, identifying opportunities for efficiency, and improving customer experience metrics. For Product Operations, you’ll develop tools to analyze workflows and user sentiment, as well as measure product adoption and engagement. Additionally, you will work across teams to ensure consistent data definitions, accurate reporting, and scalable data processes.

Data Scientists also collaborate with partners in Internal Tools, Data Engineering, Marketing and Product teams on broader efforts where product and operations overlap. You will be expected to quickly build technical and content expertise about our platform. You will be involved in scoping, prioritization and execution of tasks related to new company initiatives and programs while also gathering, organizing and presenting insights, trends, and predictions to partners and stakeholders.

Challenges

The Data Science team is a centralized function with individual members embedded in specific business lanes. Data Scientists are expected to have a strong technical background, ask the right questions, and are comfortable rolling up their sleeves to find the answers. The role is highly collaborative and requires a deep understanding of the vision and objectives of the Customer Service and Product Operations teams. Partnering proactively with leadership, Data Scientists refine strategy, identify opportunities to drive progress on strategic company initiatives, and prioritize effectively.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with leaders of Thumbtack’s Customer Service and Product Operations teams to conduct in-depth quantitative analyses that guide strategic decisions
• Make recommendations based on detailed analysis and a deep understanding of our business
• Build and maintain reports, models, metrics, and visualizations which provide insight into user experiences and operational performance
• Develop and maintain source-of-truth infrastructure for operations teams to ensure consistent, accurate, and scalable reporting
• Work with Ops and Finance teams to measure the impact of Service and Product Operations initiatives
• Maintain SQL queries and dashboards that underpin analysis and reporting infrastructure
• Identify key drivers of core business outcomes through regression analyses and other statistical techniques
• Design and run experiments to test hypotheses, improve workflows, and optimize strategies for the Service and Product Operations teams
• Contribute to our team and company data culture through peer collaboration, training, coaching and more

What you'll need 

If you don't think you meet all of the criteria below but still are interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box, and we're looking for someone excited to join the team.

• BA/BS degree, preferably in Economics, Statistics, Math, or Computer Science
• Passion for using data to drive business impact in an operational environment, including running A/B experiments and applying causal analysis techniques to business process data
• Experience analyzing user experience and operational data (both product and survey data), preferably in a technology or marketplace company
• Strong written and verbal communication skills: this role will require writing content and explaining results to internal and external audiences
• Strong experience using SQL to query large datasets, proficiency with data visualization software (e.g., Tableau, Looker), and familiarity with statistics/programming languages (e.g., R, Python)
• Ability to detect and debug data anomalies in complex operational processes and a track record of working with business leaders to drive improvements and efficiencies
• Demonstrated ability to self-motivate and drive projects independently as well as partner successfully with cross-functional teams

Bonus points if you have 

• Master’s degree in Applied Economics, Statistics, Data Science or related fields
• Familiarity with data science and processes of operational business lanes such as Customer Service, Business Development, Sales, or Business Operations
• Experience with building data pipelines and data warehouses to support scalable data analytics
• Working knowledge of Looker and LookML. You know how to use it effectively and have deep enough knowledge to grow the team by training others

Thumbtack is a virtual-first company, meaning you can live and work from any one of our approved locations across the United States, Canada or the Philippines.* Learn more about our virtual-first working model here.

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