Data Scientist

Who you are

• Advanced degree (MS or PhD, PhD preferred) in a quantitative field like Operations Research, Applied Math, Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, or a related area; or equivalent work experience
• Passion for solving unstructured and non-standard mathematical problems, with 2+ years of hands-on experience in optimization (preferred), causal inference, or machine learning
• End-to-end experience with data, including querying, aggregation, analysis, and visualization
• Proficiency with Python
• Strong ability to collaborate and communicate with others in a team setting
• Experience seeking out and adopting new methods and techniques
• Experience designing, running, and analyzing A/B tests to validate hypotheses and inform decision-making

What the job involves

• As a Data Scientist specializing in Algorithms, you'll partner closely with product, engineering, and operations leaders to build and scale incentive systems, shape long-term mechanism design strategy, and deliver on critical business goals tied to marketplace efficiency and driver earnings.
• Candidates with strong optimization backgrounds — think mathematical programming, control theory, or operations research — are a great fit, though we welcome strong candidates from machine learning or causal inference as well.
• The ideal candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment and brings a hands-on, entrepreneurial mindset to drive results
• Collaborate with engineering and product teams to design, implement, and iterate on new features and algorithmic improvements for driver incentives and pay mechanisms
• Design, develop, and deploy optimization models, algorithms, and systems for problems such as budget allocation, multidimensional cost-curve development, and incentive targeting
• Write production model code; collaborate with Software Engineers to implement algorithms in production
• Perform exploratory data analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the marketplace and its users
• Communicate findings and facilitate launch decisions with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Ensure robust experimentation and causal inference methodologies are applied to measure the impact of new features and strategies

Benefits

• Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options
• Mental health benefits
• In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have unlimited paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
• 401(k) plan to help save for your future
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program
• Family building benefits
• Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program