Senior Staff Data Scientist - Consumer Relevance

Details

Reddit is a community of communities built on shared interests, passion, and trust. Every day, Reddit users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 126 million daily active unique visitors, Reddit is one of the internet’s largest sources of information.

This role is on the Consumer team focusing on relevance measurement and evaluation for feeds, search, and recommendation systems. The Senior Staff Data Scientist will be the technical authority on relevance metrics, offline evaluation, experimentation methodology, and will partner closely with ML engineers and product teams to influence relevance strategy across Consumer. The position is remote within the United States.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical authority on relevance metrics and evaluation methodology across Consumer, setting standards for measuring the quality of feeds, search results, and recommendations in a community-driven environment
• Develop metrics frameworks and offline evaluation approaches for ranking and recommendation systems, including proxy metrics that reliably predict long-term outcomes like retention, community health, and user satisfaction
• Design and analyze experiments for relevance features, accounting for platform-specific challenges such as spillover effects between communities, interference between contributors and consumers, and long-run impacts of ranking changes on content supply
• Identify opportunities where improved measurement and analysis can unlock product insights, particularly around content quality, search intent understanding, and personalization effectiveness
• Partner with ML engineers and product teams to translate model performance metrics into user-facing impact
• Influence long-term product strategy for Feeds and Search by synthesizing insights from experimentation, observational analysis, and metric deep-dives into recommendations for senior leadership
• Mentor and elevate other data scientists on relevance evaluation, experimentation best practices for ranking systems, causal reasoning, and statistical rigor
• Publish and share methodological advances internally and, where appropriate, externally

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Statistics, Computer Science, Information Retrieval, Economics, or a related quantitative field with focus on recommendation systems, ranking, causal inference, or evaluation methodology; OR M.S. with equivalent depth of expertise
• For M.S. holders: 12+ years of industry experience in applied science, data science, or relevance/ranking-focused roles; For Ph.D. holders: 8+ years of industry experience in applied science, data science, or relevance/ranking-focused roles
• Deep expertise in metrics design and evaluation for ranking and recommendation systems, including offline metrics and counterfactual evaluation
• Strong understanding of causal inference and experimentation methodology, including practical experience with novelty effects, position bias, long-run effect estimation, and ecosystem-level impacts
• Experience defining and validating quality metrics for content ranking, search, or recommendations at scale
• Strong theoretical grounding in experimental design, including power analysis, variance reduction techniques, and sequential testing as applied to relevance experiments
• Expert knowledge of SQL and proficiency in R and/or Python for statistical computing
• Demonstrated ability to influence product and organizational strategy through data-driven insights
• Excellent communication skills to explain nuanced statistical and ML concepts to technical and non-technical senior stakeholders
• Experience mentoring data scientists and building organizational capability in relevance evaluation and experimentation
• Comfortable in innovative and fast-paced environments with a bias toward action

Preferred Qualifications

• Published research or industry contributions in recommendation systems or causal inference for ranking
• Experience with social network or user-generated content platforms where community-level dynamics create non-trivial relevance and experimentation challenges

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare benefits and income replacement programs
• 401(k) with employer match
• Global benefit programs (workspace, professional development, caregiving support)
• Family planning support and gender-affirming care
• Mental health & coaching benefits
• Flexible vacation & paid volunteer time off
• Generous paid parental leave

Compensation & Other Details

• Remote within the United States (#LI-REMOTE)
• Base salary range (U.S.): $232,500 - $325,500 USD
• Role may be eligible for equity (RSUs) and, depending on the position, may be eligible for a commission
• Interviews may be recorded/transcribed and applicants may opt out; candidate privacy policy referenced
• Reddit is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities.