Lead Data Scientist, Newsroom Analytics

Dow Jones; New York (NY); On-site; USD 135,000 - 155,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health benefits

Retirement packages

Wellbeing programs

Job summary

Dow Jones is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to drive audience-data strategy within its influential newsroom. This role involves collaborating with various teams to identify key analytical opportunities and building predictive models. Candidates should have 5+ years' experience in data science and must demonstrate strong proficiency in Python and SQL.

The position offers a base pay range of $135,000 - $155,000 based on experience and skills, along with a comprehensive benefits package.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in data science, analytics, or applied machine learning.
• Proven ability to own models end-to-end in a lean team setting.
• Strong proficiency in Python, including feature engineering and model training.
• Experience with large-scale data warehouses and ETL workflows.

Responsibilities

• Partner with digital strategy, coverage, and product teams to identify analytical opportunities.
• Design and build predictive and explanatory models end-to-end.
• Translate quantitative findings into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Own the core metrics and measurement systems for newsroom evaluations.

Skills

Data science

Analytics

Applied machine learning

Python

SQL

Statistical methods

Communication

Tools

Airflow

Snowflake

BigQuery

dbt

Job description

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to drive our newsroom's audience-data strategy. Reporting to the Senior Manager, Newsroom Data, you will be embedded in one of the world's most influential newsrooms, working directly with newsroom coverage, audience, and product strategy teams on the decisions that shape how news is reported, prioritized, and delivered to millions of readers.

Responsibilities

• Partner with our digital strategy, coverage and product teams to identify the highest-impact analytical opportunities, define the right questions, and shape the data science roadmap around problems that drive real newsroom outcomes.
• Design and build predictive and explanatory models end-to-end, from feature engineering and validation through production, making principled tradeoffs between complexity and interpretability along the way.
• Translate quantitative findings into clear, actionable recommendations for senior newsroom and business stakeholders, and partner with cross-functional teams to see those recommendations through to adoption.
• Own the core metrics and measurement systems that newsroom teams rely on to evaluate performance and make editorial decisions, ensuring they are accurate, well-documented, and trusted.
• Apply rigorous statistical thinking to measure real-world editorial and audience impact, drawing on causal inference and observational methods alongside controlled experimentation to isolate what’s actually driving outcomes.
• Mentor and develop junior data team members, establishing shared standards for rigorous, production-ready analysis and building the team’s collective technical capability over time.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in data science, analytics, or applied machine learning, preferably in a media, publishing, or subscription-based environment.
• Proven ability to own models end-to-end in a lean team setting, including scheduling, maintaining, and iterating on outputs using orchestration tools such as Airflow.
• Strong proficiency in Python including feature engineering, model training, validation, and interpretation, with experience maintaining production-quality, reproducible code in Git.
• Advanced SQL and hands-on experience with large-scale data warehouses (Snowflake/BigQuery) as well as ETL workflows/analytics engineering frameworks (dbt).
• Experience applying causal inference and statistical methods to measure real-world outcomes from observational data.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to frame quantitative findings as clear business or editorial recommendations for senior non-technical stakeholders, and a demonstrated ability to influence decisions without direct authority.
• Experience building models that influence content strategy, audience development, or consumer retention.

Standout Candidates will have strengths in one or more areas of the following

• Experience with NLP or text analysis methods, including topic modeling, classification, or entity extraction applied to content data.
• Familiarity with off-platform attribution and audience measurement, specifically modeling the relationship between distributed content, platform referrals, and downstream subscription or engagement outcomes.
• Experience leveraging AI to democratize data and enable faster time-to-insight.

Compensation

Base Pay Range: $135,000 - $155,000 (may vary based on experience, skills, location, and other factors).

For bonus-eligible roles, targets are determined based on multiple considerations, including market benchmarks and individual contributions.

For benefits-eligible roles, we offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package covering health, retirement, wellbeing, and more, along with optional benefits to meet the diverse needs of our employees.

Equal Opportunity and Reasonable Accommodation

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. Dow Jones is committed to providing reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application and/or interview process. If you need assistance or accommodation in completing your application due to a disability, email us at [e-mail]. Please put "Reasonable Accommodation" in the subject line and provide a brief description of the type of assistance you need. This inbox will not be monitored for application status updates.