Data Science Internship (Current PhD) - Summer 2027

Offline; Lehi (UT); On-site; USD 34,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

Neighbor is seeking a Data Scientist Intern to join the Data & Analytics team. You’ll work on production ML models for lifetime value, unit economics, and forecasting, improving accuracy and providing evidence of improvements.

You’ll also help design and interpret A/B tests with Product, Marketing, and Sales, reporting to the Data & Analytics manager. This role is ideal for a PhD student eager to apply research to live business problems.

Qualifications

• PhD-level candidate currently enrolled in a quantitative field
• Demonstrated experience applying statistics and machine learning to real-world or complex datasets
• Strong SQL and fluent Python for modeling; dbt or Cube knowledge a plus, training available
• Academic or project-based experience with A/B testing design or statistical hypothesis testing
• Grounding in inference and communicating uncertainty clearly
• Ability to diagnose and improve existing code and models, with a proactive mindset
• Clear communication with non-technical stakeholders explaining results and uncertainty

Responsibilities

• Improve lifetime value and unit economics models by retraining and feature engineering
• Audit models to find leakage, stale assumptions, and weak features
• Build forecasts for demand, supply, revenue by market and levers
• Collaborate with Product, Marketing, and Sales to design and interpret tests
• Analyze results and state what can and cannot be inferred
• Become a subject matter expert on Neighbor's product, users, and marketing lifecycle

Skills

SQL

Python

A/B testing

Statistics

Research

Communication

Education

PhD-level candidate

Tools

dbt

Cube

Superset

Redshift

Athena

Job description

At Neighbor, we're building the largest hyperlocal marketplace the world has ever seen. We've raised over $75 million from top-tier investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and the CEOs of DoorDash, StockX, and Uber. Our marketplace is already flourishing in all 50 states and we're just getting started!

We're excited to add a Data Scientist Intern to our Data & Analytics team. You'll work on the machine learning models we already run in production, including lifetime value, unit economics, and forecasting, making them more accurate and showing with evidence that they've improved. You'll also help Product, Marketing, and Sales divisions design A/B tests and interpret the results. Your work feeds directly into decisions across a marketplace that operates in nearly every U.S. city. This is a great fit for a PhD student who wants to apply their research skills to live business problems. You'll report to our Data & Analytics manager, with regular code review and hands-on mentorship.

Our stack: Python, dbt, and Dagster on Redshift and Athena, with a Cube semantic layer and Superset for BI.

The Problems You'll Solve

• Improve our lifetime value and unit economics models. Retrain them, re-engineer their features, and validate their predictions against realized outcomes.
• Audit inherited models: find the leakage, the stale hardcoded assumption, the segment where performance quietly falls apart, and the feature that's doing less work than everyone believes.
• Build forecasts our operators actually plan against: demand and supply by market, revenue, and the levers that move them.
• Partner with Product, Marketing, and Sales to design tests before they launch. Catching an underpowered test in the design review is worth more than any analysis you can do afterward.
• Analyze results and make a call and be candid about what each design can and can't identify
• Become a subject matter expert on Neighbor's product, users, and marketing life cycle. The modeling is the easy part; knowing which features mean something is the hard part.

Qualifications

• PhD-level candidate currently enrolled in a quantitative field (Computer Science, Statistics, Math, Physics, Data Science, etc.) completing your PhD by May of 2028; transcript required
• Demonstrated research, coursework, or project experience applying statistics and machine learning to real-world or complex datasets
• Strong SQL and fluent Python for modeling are required; experience with dbt or semantic layers like Cube is a big plus, but we're happy to train you on our specific transformation stack
• Academic or project-based experience with A/B testing design or statistical hypothesis testing
• Real grounding in inference, not just fitting: you can explain what your confidence interval means, why the p-value moved when you added a second metric, how leakage sneaks into a validation split, and when you don't have the data to answer the question
• Strong problem-solving mindset and eagerness to diagnose and improve existing code and statistical models
• Intellectual stubbornness in a productive direction: you keep pulling on a thread when the numbers don't reconcile, and you don't ship an explanation you don't believe
• Clear communication with non-technical stakeholders: you can explain a result and its uncertainty without either overclaiming or hiding behind jargon

About Neighbor:

Neighbor is the largest and most comprehensive marketplace for self storage and parking, with listings in almost every U.S. city. From storage facilities to neighborhood garages, driveways, and RV spots, Neighbor brings every option together in one simple search. Come help us disrupt the $500 billion storage and parking industry! This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing, VC-backed tech startup. You will be part of a an extremely talented, hardworking and passionate team committed to changing the world one neighbor at a time.

Neighbor is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing a positive interview experience for every candidate. If accommodations due to a disability or medical condition are needed, connect with us via email [e-mail]. Check out our careers page to get to know us better as you think about your next step at Neighbor!