Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Nextdoor is a neighborhood network that connects neighbors, public agencies, and businesses through local information and community technology. The Senior Data Scientist on the Search team will own data science for query understanding, content retrieval, ranking, and the end-to-end search experience. The role combines product analytics, experimentation, machine learning, and hands-on solution development in partnership with product, engineering, design, marketing, and operations teams.
Responsibilities
- Design and develop algorithms and models to optimize Search relevance, retrieval, and ranking — driving value for both neighbors and the businesses they discover
- Experiment design: ensure we run experiments efficiently and accurately, including monitoring early feature development through post-release follow-ups
- Develop and share key strategic insights through data analysis, including designing experiments and evaluating the performance and impact of data-driven content and ranking changes
- Build scalable metrics and dashboards to track Search performance and inform decisions across query understanding, retrieval, ranking, and downstream engagement
- Partner with cross-functional teams to support product development efforts (including product, design, engineering, marketing, and operations)
- Care deeply about data quality and empower employees to leverage data to help them succeed in their careers and help Nextdoor grow
Skills
- 5+ years of relevant Data Science experience
- Direct experience working on a Search, recommendations, or information retrieval product — familiarity with the core problems (query understanding, retrieval, ranking, relevance evaluation) and the metrics used to measure them
- Innate curiosity around finding meaningful insights that inform how we think about and develop our product and business strategies
- Working knowledge of ML models and — more importantly — the judgment to apply them to real business problems and to devise the right metrics for evaluating algorithms and ranking systems
- Strong working knowledge of experimentation, including designing and analyzing complex product A/B testing results, with fluency in handling interaction effects and long-term metric movement
- Expert knowledge of SQL and Python, including common scientific computing packages and data science tools such as numpy, pandas, and scikit-learn
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to synthesize, simplify, and explain complex problems to different types of audiences, including executives, and compile compelling narratives
- Experience working with ranking algorithms for unstructured content
- Experience designing, deploying, or monitoring ML production models
- Basic understanding of how to build RAG systems
Benefits
- Meaningful equity grant for this role, with quarterly vesting and a first vest date within the first 3 months of your start date.
- A variety of health plans, including a 100% covered employee only plan option.
- OneMedical membership for concierge care.
- Hybrid employment model, blending an in-office presence and work-from-home experience.
Company Overview
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