Senior Staff Data Scientist - Consumer Relevance

Reddit Inc.

Job Overview

Location

Remote - Ontario, Canada

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Serve as the technical authority on relevance metrics and evaluation methodology across Reddit’s Consumer organization, setting standards for measuring feed, search, and recommendation quality 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 such as user retention, community health, and satisfaction.
• Design and analyze experiments for relevance features, accounting for unique networked platform challenges like spillover effects between communities, interference between contributors and consumers, and long-run impacts on content supply.
• Identify opportunities where improved measurement and analysis can unlock previously unmeasurable insights around content quality, search intent understanding, and personalization effectiveness.
• Partner closely with ML engineers and product teams to translate model performance metrics into tangible user-facing impact and product improvements.
• Influence long-term product strategy for Feeds and Search by synthesizing insights from experimentation, observational analysis, and deep-dive metric evaluations into actionable recommendations for senior leadership.
• Mentor and elevate other data scientists across the organization in relevance evaluation, experimentation best practices for ranking systems, causal reasoning, and statistical rigor.
• Publish and share methodological advances internally and, where appropriate, externally to contribute to the broader relevance, recommendation systems, and experimentation research community.
• Define and validate quality metrics for content ranking, search, and recommendations at scale, ensuring alignment with user experience goals and platform health.
• Apply strong theoretical grounding in experimental design, including power analysis, variance reduction techniques, and sequential testing as applied to relevance experiments on large-scale user-generated content platforms.
• Utilize expert knowledge of SQL and proficiency in R and/or Python for statistical computing, data analysis, and model evaluation.
• Communicate nuanced statistical and machine learning concepts and tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non-technical senior stakeholders to drive alignment and decision-making.
• Maintain a bias toward action in a fast-paced, innovative environment while upholding rigorous analytical standards.

🎯 Requirements

• Ph.D. in Statistics, Computer Science, Information Retrieval, Economics, or a related quantitative field with a strong 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
• Expert knowledge of SQL and proficiency in R and/or Python for statistical computing

🏖️ Benefits

• Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support
• Family Planning Support
• Gender-Affirming Care
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
• Comprehensive Medical Benefits & Health Care Spending Account
• Registered Retirement Savings Plan with matching contributions

Skills & Technologies

Python

Data Science

Senior

Remote

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Reddit Inc.

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About Reddit Inc.

Reddit is a social media platform where users submit, vote, and comment on content organized into topic-based communities called subreddits. Founded in 2005, it offers forums for news, hobbies, advice, and discussion, enabling real-time conversations and content ranking through upvotes and downvotes. With millions of daily active users globally, Reddit hosts diverse communities moderated by volunteers, supports multimedia posts, and provides advertising and premium membership options. The platform emphasizes user anonymity, community governance, and crowdsourced information, making it a hub for niche interests, viral content, and public discourse. Reddit went public in 2024 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

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