Applied Data Science Lead: AI/ML & Business Impact

AppFolio, Inc.; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 167,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio, a technology leader powering the real estate industry, seeks a senior data scientist to lead model development and define the Next Best Action layer for GTM teams. You will shape production-grade signal modeling, deploy end-to-end ML pipelines, and mentor a growing team.

You will partner with Sales, Marketing, and Finance, set priorities with leadership, and drive applied AI strategy using Snowflake, dbt, and Airflow.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field.
• 8+ years building and deploying predictive models in production for business stakeholders.
• 2+ years leading data scientists as a people manager or technical lead.
• Strong programming background with Python and SQL.
• Experience developing, deploying, monitoring, and retraining classification and propensity models end to end.
• Experience building and evaluating LLM-based products in production (agents, analytics).
• Experience with Snowflake/dbt/Airflow and CRM data like Salesforce.
• Ability to turn ambiguous questions into repeatable models and communicate actionable recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Own signal modeling and scoring logic for AppFolio’s products and co-create Next Best Action layer for GTM teams.
• Own shared data science services for the business, forecasting automations, data access, and partner adoption and explainability.
• Own coding standards for the Cerberus model fleet, including deployment, monitoring, retraining, and governance outputs.
• Review every pull request and deliverable, owning the quality and risk of models, analyses, recommendations and automations.
• Coordinate delivery with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Finance leaders; set priorities and run cross-functional operating rhythm.
• Set the direction for applied AI/ML in Data Science & Analytics with leadership.
• Manage and grow a team of Data Scientists: 1:1s, coaching, performance reviews, hiring, growth paths.

Skills

Python

SQL

Leadership

Production ML

LLM-based products

Experimentation

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication with leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in STEM

Tools

Snowflake

dbt

Airflow

Salesforce

Job description

AppFolio, a technology leader powering the real estate industry, seeks a senior data scientist to lead model development and define the Next Best Action layer for GTM teams. You will shape production-grade signal modeling, deploy end-to-end ML pipelines, and mentor a growing team.

You will partner with Sales, Marketing, and Finance, set priorities with leadership, and drive applied AI strategy using Snowflake, dbt, and Airflow.