Staff Data Scientist — Remote-First, Drive Ranking & AI

Jackalope Digital LLC; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 189,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Remote-friendly culture

Job summary

DuckDuckGo's Data Science team is seeking a senior-level leader to drive product and business impact by improving our search engine ranking and results. You will own end-to-end projects, guide ML initiatives, and mentor teammates while collaborating with product teams to refine evaluation signals and deliver measurable improvements.

The role emphasizes production ML, NLP solutions, and AI-assisted development in a remote-first environment with equity and career growth opportunities.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in Data Science with 2+ years at Staff, Principal, or Director level and proven project leadership.
• Experience advising others on complex data science work.
• Hands-on ML in production, NLP solutions, and AI-assisted development.
• Production-grade Python or a comparable high-level language.
• Advanced SQL and query optimization skills.
• Strong collaboration with product teams and driving team throughput.
• Preferred: running search-specific projects from scoping to production.
• Preferred: experience with large-scale search infrastructure (Vespa, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Solr).

Responsibilities

• Drive product and business impact by improving search engine ranking and results.
• Lead high-complexity data science projects from scoping to production.
• Collaborate with product teams to expand evaluation frameworks and surface ranking improvements.
• Explore and prototype AI features for ranking and relevance.

Skills

Data Science Leadership

Advising teams

Ambiguity strategy

ML in production

NLP solutions

Python coding

SQL optimization

Cross-functional collaboration

Search projects

Large-scale search infra

Tools

Vespa

Elasticsearch

OpenSearch

Solr

Job description

DuckDuckGo's Data Science team is seeking a senior-level leader to drive product and business impact by improving our search engine ranking and results. You will own end-to-end projects, guide ML initiatives, and mentor teammates while collaborating with product teams to refine evaluation signals and deliver measurable improvements.

The role emphasizes production ML, NLP solutions, and AI-assisted development in a remote-first environment with equity and career growth opportunities.