Director, Data Science

WE HAVE CREATED A WORLD WHERE ART AND SCIENCE ARE BEST FRIENDS

Known is a modern marketing company engineered for the unprecedented opportunities and challenges facing marketers today. We are about 200+ people strong, pairing PhD data scientists with award-winning creatives, strategists, engineers and expert research teams to produce some of the most innovative and cutting-edge creative work in culture. We believe that when creative truly collaborates with science, strategy, and technology, amazing things can happen. 

Ad Age touted that “Known may be the ultimate example of a full-service agency,” and honored us with two prestigious recognitions this year: #3 on The A-List as one of the top agencies in the world, and Ad Age’s Data & Insights Agency of the year for the second year in a row. Without our incredible partnerships with our clients, spanning across the leading brands in finance, technology, entertainment, media, CPG, real estate, and many other categories, honors like this could not be possible, and also have helped us earn additional awards and recognitions over the years like: Emmys, Clios Entertainment and Sports Awards, Effies, Cannes Lions Awards, ProMax Agency of the Year, and Digiday’s Most Innovative Media Agency to name a few.

We couldn’t create this award-winning work without seeking out and hiring the best talent. What does it mean to be a Knowner? We are curious innovators, knowledge-hunters who are constantly challenging ourselves to do better and be better for our clients, for our team and for our world at large. Our offices around the U.S. are open and while most of our people work in a hybrid setting, we are a distributed workforce with a number of Knowners working remotely.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT US, LET'S TALK ABOUT YOU

About the role:

Known’s Skeptic team builds the tools that power Known’s media buying practice and elevate the media campaigns of our clients. Our work ranges from predictive modeling / optimization to infrastructure development, and Skeptic’s data scientists and engineers are challenged every day to push the limits of advanced advertising. 

We are seeking a Director of Data Science who can understand the core business objectives of our internal teams and our clients, and develop tools tailored to their use cases. Experience in media, including but not limited to Media Mix Modeling, TV viewership predictions, and reach / frequency optimization, is a plus, but not required for the role. In this role you will work with, and guide, other data scientists on a variety of projects and interface directly with our engineering, media strategy, and channel data science teams. As a Director of Data Science, you will drive forward some of our most difficult data science projects and be expected to be a true technical leader, able to build production level products from start to finish. This role will not have direct management responsibilities but you will serve as a mentor for data scientists across the organization.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Developing new techniques (e.g., ML models, optimization algorithms, and automation) to improve Known IP and create tools for Known’s clients 
• Working with other data scientists and engineers to productionalize new tools 
• Managing the ingestion and cleaning of new datasets relevant to your work / projects
• Mentoring other data scientists on our team
• Speaking to clients to understand business needs and communicate back results / solutions

WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE

• A Masters or PhD from a well-regarded college or university.  STEM degrees are preferred.  
• 7+ years of hands-on experience doing quantitative analysis, modeling, optimization and/or statistics. Experience utilizing Python and SQL.
• 5+ years of experience building data science software
• Experience in advertising or advertising technology is a plus

Skills, abilities, and knowledge

• Superb communication and presentation skills
• An ability to translate abstract business challenges into quantitative problems, and solve them by whatever means necessary, which may not always be strict machine learning
• A commitment to managing the quality & accuracy of analytics, ensuring high standards with your and others’ work
• Experience working on a tech team, with experience in cloud technologies, version control, etc.

Competencies

• Ability to prioritize time, work and effort while multitasking on multiple projects
• Desire to mentor and teach others
• Collaborative attitude
• Self motivated and exhibits initiative
• Willing & able to l