Staff Data Scientist - SEO Simulation

Course Hero is hiring! Help us build a world where every student graduates, confident and prepared, through innovative applications of data science. Are you our dynamic Staff Data Scientist focusing on simulation, forecasts, user and system behavior models, and more? This is a technically engaged, high-visibility position breaking new trails for the company. We are full-stack Data Scientists, problem solvers who start from DWH tables (and sometimes raw data), explore data, build models, and productionalize into our common Data Engineering and ML Engineering framework.

Search Engine Optimization is an art form to which we are bringing more scientific, measurement, and statistical rigor. As one of the largest sites on the internet (100M+ indexed pages, 1B+ pageviews/year, 100M+ users/year), we have enough data to make meaningful innovations and a world-class in-house SEO team to partner with. Organic traffic is our lifeblood, so improving our understanding of search algorithms through measurement, experimentation, and modeling will improve our search rankings and, therefore, drive growth for the business.

Here are some ways you’ll make an impact!

• Build a system of models that predicts each page’s crawl, indexation, search ranking, and traffic, controlling for endogenous site changes. The aggregation of this is a continually updating forecast of these KPIs for the business, and a synthetic control against which to evaluate experimental results.
• Build an orthogonal model to validate the bottom-up simulation described above and summarize top-level domain health. Build anomaly detection routines that detect risks at all margins.
• Work with SEO Strategists and peer Data Scientists to understand SEO best practices, propose strategic ideas, and develop measurement techniques. Build reusable analysis tools for sample sizing and post-test analysis; formulate hypotheses to improve model accuracy and conduct rigorous testing.
• Discover and validate key performance metrics, for ourselves and competitors; develop models and datasets for synthetic control.
• Propose experimentation strategies utilizing our primary coursehero.com domain and our dozens of other domains. Scale the above models to our other domains.

Are you our next Staff Data Scientist?

• 6+ years data science experience of continually increasing complexity and impact.
• 2+ years experience building forecasting and/or simulation models.
• MS or PhD degree in an applicable quantitative field like Statistics, Math, Engineering, Science, Economics, Econometrics, Operations Research, Social Science, or similar.
• Excellent proficiency in Python (or R), SQL skill, and an obsession with data breadth, depth, and quality. Propose and research new/additional data sources.
• Deep understanding of statistics and probability, quantitative sciences, data analysis, predictive and ML modeling.
• Strong problem-solving, detail orientation, and communication; a bias towards taking action quickly, making things happen, learning, and correcting course as you receive feedback.
• Experience shipping large-scale inference models based on disparate data sources and non-obvious measurement techniques. This is both a research and an applied position.
• Bonus: Knowledge of SEO, Brand Marketing Measurement, or similar hard-to-measure domains.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary, annual bonus, and RSUs
• Medical coverage, including full dental and vision
• Life and disability benefits
• 401(k) program (US) / retirement savings plan (Canada) with company match
• One month paid sabbatical after 5 years at the company
• Education reimbursement
• Professional development workshops & industry conferences
• Paid parental leave
• Flexible work schedule
• Social responsibility program (volunteer time off and donation matching)
• Annual wellness stipend
• Tech stipend
• Annual family planning stipend
• Quarterly snack boxes delivered to your door

For positions in San Francisco, CA, and other locations where required, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Other locations: IL, MA, NJ.

Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don't apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria. We strongly encourage you to apply if you're interested: we'd love to learn how you can amplify our team with your unique experience!

We are a virtual-first company and have employees dispersed throughout the United States and Canada. We have a market-based pay structure that varies by location. The base pay for this position is dependent on multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed below. You may also be eligible to participate in our bonus program and may be offered an equity award, benefits, and other types of compensation.