Competitive Data Scientist (Kaggle)

confidential; United States; Remote; USD 83,000 - 165,000; Part time

Job summary

Zekai is seeking a Competitive Data Scientist (Kaggle) for a 100% remote contract role. You will tackle challenging data science problems from competition platforms, design reproducible tasks, and provide reference solutions.

You will build reproducible environments, write tests, and evaluate solutions. Flexible schedule, ~15 hours per week, pay $60–$120 per hour. Open to applicants worldwide in countries the employer accepts.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in data science, ML, or quantitative modeling (competition formats).
• Strong problem-solving ability with clear understanding of methods used.
• Practical programming ability to implement and verify solutions.

Responsibilities

• Build reproducible environments, prepare relevant data and dependencies, and implement reference solutions.
• Develop tests and evaluation criteria to distinguish correct solutions from flawed approaches.
• Run coding agents against tasks, investigate failures, and refine tasks based on observed behavior.
• Identify implementation errors, flawed assumptions, data leakage, and other issues affecting correctness.
• Document task requirements, solution reasoning, and verification steps clearly.

Skills

Data science

ML

Quantitative modeling

Python

Tools

Python

Job description

Role Title: Competitive Data Scientist (Kaggle)

Pay: $60–$120/hour

Location: Global, fully remote

Job Type: Contractor (~15 hours per week)

Schedule: Flexible-you choose the hours and days you work, including weekends if desired

We're looking for data scientists, machine learning practitioners, and applied mathematics experts with competitve Data Science experience. (Kaggle, DrivenData, etc.)

You’ll draw on your competition experience, mathematical reasoning, and programming skills to create tasks that require more than a plausible answer. Each task should have a reproducible environment, a verified reference solution, and reliable checks for successful completion.

What You’ll Do

• Build reproducible environments, prepare relevant data and dependencies, and implement reference solutions.
• Develop tests and evaluation criteria that reliably distinguish correct solutions from incomplete or flawed approaches.
• Run coding agents against tasks, investigate their failures, and refine the tasks based on observed behavior.
• Identify implementation errors, flawed assumptions, data leakage, and other issues that affect correctness.
• Document task requirements, solution reasoning, and verification steps clearly.

What We’re Looking For

• Demonstrated experience in data science, ML, quantitative modeling, or relevant research competitions. (Kaggle, DrivenData, etc.)
• Strong problem-solving ability and a clear understanding of the methods you use.
• Practical programming ability sufficient to implement and verify your own solutions.

Relevant competition platforms include Kaggle, DrivenData, Zindi, AIcrowd, Numerai, DataSource.ai, and CodaLab/Codabench.

Huge Pluses

• Strong coding experience, particularly in Python, including testing, debugging, and working with unfamiliar code

This is a 100% remote contract role, open to applicants worldwide in the countries the employer accepts.