Director - Data Science

Full Time Job
The Role

As part of a growing team that is innovating the way Discovery does business around the world, the Data Science Director will be responsible for directing and executing high impact data science projects to support our Ad Sales, Finance, Research, and Media business partners. These efforts will include optimization of revenue, viewership, engagement, retention, content value, and customer value for multiple media platforms. Specifically, you’ll be responsible for leading the development and operationalization of mathematical/statistical analyses, hypothesis tests, and algorithms/models. You’ll also be responsible for leading refinement and execution of operationalized algorithms and models.

You’ll need to be an innovative forward-thinker who will direct end-to-end execution of data science initiatives, mentor and direct data scientists, and contribute directly to existing and emerging business strategies and goals. Communication and ability to work in a collaborative team environment are essential.

You’ll work with the Global Data Science Team Lead, data & analytics team, data engineering team, and business stakeholders to direct development, refinement, and scaling of data science solutions. Therefore, this role requires strong technical and communication skills, creativity and attention to detail, experience leading data scientists, and experience leading data science projects from end-to-end – from use case definition to final product delivery.

Responsibilities

Leadership Responsibilities
1. Meet with business stakeholders to flush out strategic vision, use cases, and key requirements
2. Collaborate with data & technology teams to identify & source data sets required for analyses
3. Provide regular updates to and receive strategic direction from Global Data Science Team Lead
4. Support Global Data Science Team Lead in setting up cadence of regular communication with senior level management and business stakeholders
5. Agree on project deliverable timelines with data scientists & relevant data, technology, and business partners; Manage project execution according to agreed timelines
6. Provide direction to data scientists and review data science approaches, code, & deliverables
7. Prepare and communicate insights from analyses to Global Data Science Team, senior level management, and business stakeholders in clear business terms
8. Assist in making data science techniques approachable and understandable to non-data scientists
9. Identify appropriate data science solutions as new data-centric business problems arise
10. Support Global Data Science Team Lead in developing and implementing data science framework, processes, and best practices
11. Stay current with new data science methods, technologies, and industry trends

Technical Responsibilities
1. Apply data mining techniques to cleanse and explore large, complex data sets in preparation for further analysis
2. Apply appropriate data reduction, feature selection, and feature engineering techniques
3. Develop and implement hypothesis tests
4. Develop, validate, and operationalize appropriate mathematical and statistical algorithms and models; including implementation & monitoring on large scale systems
5. Review, make enhancements to, and execute operationalized algorithms and models
6. Develop data products to communicate insights to business stakeholders
7. Collaborate with data & technology teams to create repeatable processes and scalable solutions

Requirements

* Master’s or PhD degree in a quantitative field (statistics, mathematics, economics, etc.)
* 8 years of experience in end-to-end statistical analysis, data science, and machine learning lifecycles at an enterprise level
* Experience in the TV/Digital media space a plus
* Strong understanding of methods in statistical analysis (e.g., data distributions, regression analysis, experimental design, hypothesis testing, etc.)
* Expertise in exploratory data analysis, data cleaning, data wrangling, feature reduction, and feature engineering
* Strong problem-solving skills, able to break down a large problem into smaller, solvable components
* Extensive experience with different Data Science methods such as clustering, classification, regression, time series, & optimization
* Advanced programming skills in modern languages including Python, R, C#, Java, Scala and Go
* Experience with a range of machine learning related frameworks and libraries, such as Python scikit-learn, Pandas, StatsModels, Pandas, Keras, TensorFlow
* Ability to seek empirical evidence through proofs of concept, statistical validation and external research
* Ability to effectively collaborate with other data scientists, analysts, data engineers and business stakeholders
* Experience with SQL & BI/data visualization tools like R Shiny & Tableau
* Experience with AWS (RedShift, S3, EC2, EMR, etc.) and parallel processing or distributed computing a plus (e.g., Apache Spark)
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills; with the ability to communicate the results of your work in meaningful ways

New York City, New York, NYC, NY