Performance Social Scientist - Experimental Design Expert

Hive Science LLC; Durham (NC); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Hive Science LLC in Durham, NC is seeking a Social Scientist, Performance to design and scale experiments, analyze real-world campaign data and push scientific rigor into live products.

The role emphasizes causal inference, advanced quantitative methods, and strong Python/R coding, with hybrid work in our Durham office. PhD-level expertise or equivalent is required along with the ability to convey complex results to business audiences.

Qualifications

• Exceptional experimental design skills in real-world settings.
• Deep expertise in causal inference and incrementality measurement.
• Hands-on experience with advertising and campaign data metrics.
• Understanding of ad platforms, auctions, pacing and bias in results.
• Commercial experience in ad tech, marketing measurement or consumer products.
• Strong data validation for predictive or modeled outputs.
• Advanced quantitative training at PhD level or equivalent.
• Ability to explain complex methods to business audiences.

Responsibilities

• Design and scale experiments for Hive products, including holdouts and A/B tests.
• Build repeatable experimentation frameworks for new products and partners.
• Maintain Hive's validation standards for out-of-sample performance and uncertainty.
• Work with Hive scientists to ensure results are scientifically meaningful.
• Help set the scientific bar for when a product is ready to ship.
• Analyze campaign performance data: impressions, CTR, conversions, CPA, ROAS.
• Design tests that reflect auction dynamics, delivery optimization and pacing.
• Work with large, messy real-world datasets to answer viable questions.
• Turn results into case studies, benchmarks and proofs for commercial teams.
• Balance rigor, cost, speed and feasibility in live campaigns.

Skills

Experimental design

Causal inference

Advertising data

Model validation

Python

R

Claude Code fluency

Explain complex methods

Geographic data

Education

PhD or equivalent in social/quantitative psychology, computational social science, statistics, economics, or related

Tools

Claude Code

Python

R

Job description

Hive Science LLC in Durham, NC is seeking a Social Scientist, Performance to design and scale experiments, analyze real-world campaign data and push scientific rigor into live products.

The role emphasizes causal inference, advanced quantitative methods, and strong Python/R coding, with hybrid work in our Durham office. PhD-level expertise or equivalent is required along with the ability to convey complex results to business audiences.