Applied Data Science Manager — AI/ML for SaaS Growth

AppFolio; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 167,000 - 209,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio is seeking a Manager of Applied Data Science to lead a data science team building AI/ML products like our signal engine, Next Best Action, and language analytics. The role blends hands-on modeling with strategic leadership, coaching a team of data scientists while partnering with GTM, Finance, and CS to drive adoption and impact.

In this role you will set coding standards for the model fleet, oversee production deployments and retraining, and guide enterprise analytics initiatives

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field and 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 in Python and SQL with production experience.
• Experience deploying and retraining models end to end, including next-best-action systems.
• Experience with building/ evaluating LLM-based products in production.
• Familiarity with Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, and CRM data like Salesforce.
• Ability to set priorities with senior leadership and guide data-driven decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own signal modeling and scoring logic for all products and Next Best Action per persona.
• Oversee shared data science services, forecasting automations and data access.
• Maintain coding standards for model fleet, reviews, deployment, monitoring and retraining.
• Review pull requests and ensure quality and risk controls for models and analyses.
• Coordinate with Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Finance to align roadmaps.
• Set direction for applied AI/ML and manage/grow the data science team.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Experiment design

ML prod lifecycle

Next Best Action

Model evaluation

LLM apps

Education

Bachelor’s degree in STEM

Tools

Python

SQL

Snowflake

dbt

Airflow

Job description

AppFolio is seeking a Manager of Applied Data Science to lead a data science team building AI/ML products like our signal engine, Next Best Action, and language analytics. The role blends hands-on modeling with strategic leadership, coaching a team of data scientists while partnering with GTM, Finance, and CS to drive adoption and impact.

In this role you will set coding standards for the model fleet, oversee production deployments and retraining, and guide enterprise analytics initiatives