Job Description

The Data and Analytics department drives strategic and operational decisions for The Washington Post.  This highly visible team applies analytics and insights to support strategic initiatives and day-to-day operational support company-wide and is currently seeking a Principal Data Analyst. 

As our Principal Data Analyst specializing in engagement and retention, you will lead data initiatives to understand and enhance subscriber behavior, identify churn risks, and develop actionable strategies to improve customer lifetime value. Your insights will be instrumental in fostering long-term customer loyalty and maximizing recurring revenue.

You’ll work in close collaboration with the marketing, newsroom, product, engineering, advertising and finance departments on a diverse range of projects that have a critical and strategic impact on all aspects of the company.  You will regularly interact with various stakeholders in these departments, understand needs, build reports, conduct data analysis, and make actionable recommendations. You will love solving open-ended problems by taking mountains of data, transforming it into meaningful analysis aimed at identifying solutions and opportunities.   

Motivation

• You want to help shape strategy for different products and teams by turning ambiguous questions into actionable answers.

• You enjoy the balance of both technical data-wrangling (writing queries, code) and engaging presentations (summarizing takeaways, visualizing data).

• You have a knack for synthesizing different aspects of the business (finance, advertising, engineering, content) to make the more relevant recommendations to various teams

• You find value in educating coworkers about different metrics, KPIs, and analytics tools

• You think about the full picture of data, from tracking requirements to efficient processing to digestible reporting.

• You can say you enjoy working on multiple projects at one time. 

• You are energized by working on complex problems and sharing your results with others.

• You find meaning in supporting teammates and leading through example

Responsibilities

• Engagement & Retention Analytics

  • Develop deep insights into customer behaviors, usage patterns, and retention drivers

  • Create segmentation models to identify high-value customers and at-risk cohorts

  • Analyze engagement metrics (e.g., DAU/MAU, session frequency) to assess feature adoption and content consumption

  • Monitor churn rates, identify trends, and recommend mitigation strategies

• Reporting & Visualization

  • Develop dashboards to track key engagement and retention KPIs, such as CLV, churn, and cohort retention rates

  • Present findings to stakeholders in a clear, actionable format

  • Ensure data quality, consistency, and accuracy across systems

• Collaboration & Leadership

  • Work closely with marketing, product, and customer success teams to align on retention goals

  • Analyze the effectiveness of personalized engagement campaigns and provide data-driven recommendations

  • Partner with product teams to design and evaluate the impact of retention initiatives

  • Mentor and guide junior analysts on best practices for data analysis and visualization

  • Serve as a key advisor to leadership on engagement and retention trends

• Tools & Technologies

  • Leverage tools like SQL, Python, R, Tableau, and other BI platforms

  • Work with marketing automation and CRM platforms for data integration and reporting

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s in data science, Statistics, Business Analytics, or related field

• 5+ years of experience in data analytics, with significant focus on engagement and retention in subscription businesses

• Expertise in subscription metrics (e.g., retention rate, churn rate, ARPU, CLV)

• Proficiency in SQL, Python, and data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI)

• Expertise in relational Database Systems, Advanced SQL and Microsoft Excel.  Experience with MySQL