Senior Economist

About the team

As a leading voice on the U.S. housing market, Zillow Group’s Economic Research team provides research, commentary and insight for a broad audience including public, industry and internal business stakeholders. The work of our data- and fact-driven team is powered by Zillow’s industry-leading living database of all homes, as well as publicly-available data sources, and our findings are unbiased and independent of Zillow’s business goals. We have the freedom to explore topics and developments that we deem exciting and important in the housing market and shed light on how changing conditions affect a variety of perspectives and decisions. Our work on such a critical market and its participants also contextualizes Zillow’s business performance and helps advise long run company strategy. At Zillow, you’ll work in a lively, collaborative atmosphere with a high-performance team with diverse data engineering and analytical skills.

About the role

We are looking for a passionate, creative, driven Senior Economist to play a pivotal role in Zillow’s Economic Research team’s housing research and analysis efforts and presence in broadcast media. This person will be responsible for harvesting Zillow’s proprietary and public datasets into compelling research on behalf of the customer. Findings are shared in partnership with various outward facing teams including government and community relations, social and traditional media teams, and internally for strategic initiatives. Presenting to internal and external stakeholders, including through national and local broadcast and print media and on stage at conferences is a key element of this role. The role will report to the Senior Manager of Economic Research.

• Produce research blending Zillow’s proprietary data with relevant government and industry data, extracting key trends impacting the housing market and those participating in it.
• Lead research efforts from start to finish: Influence the research agenda towards the best econometric practice and actionable insight; identify and access data; conduct analyses by applying the appropriate statistical techniques and validation; and communicate final results to a variety of audiences with varying levels of analytic and housing market knowledge, including internal decision makers, policymakers, industry professionals and media.
• Build novel measurements or metrics to understand real estate trends at scale (replicable, localized and over time).
• Serve as market expert and Zillow data spokesperson to media and to industry partners on specific research, market statistics, and Zillow’s point of view on the latest housing market & economic trends. This includes live or recorded presentations, panels, and interviews for print and broadcast media
• Use data visualization tools such as Tableau and D3.js to build charts and infographics for research reports and blog posts.
• Be willing and able to deliver results in tight deadlines.

This role has been categorized as a Remote position. “Remote” employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.

In California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and Washington the standard base pay range for this role is $137,100.00 - $218,900.00 Annually. This base pay range is specific to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and Washington and may not be applicable to other locations.

In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location.

Who you are

• Master’s degree in economics, finance, statistics, or similar. PhD preferred
• 6+ years of work experience in a fast-paced environment applying insights from big data to real-world problems.
• Commanding knowledge of econometrics, multivariate statistics, and economic theory.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and works well on teams of all sizes with representatives from a diverse set of technical backgrounds.
• A passion for public speaking and giving public-facing presentations.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively on projects.
• Experience working cross-functionally between business, tech, communications, and science teams.
• You have a love of teaching and telling stories using data and a curiosity about real estate, housing policy, and urban affairs.
• Excited by and willing to learn new analytical tools and techniques.
• Expertise with R and Python programming and SQL (or similar) for data querying and tr