Sr. Political Data Scientist

Senior Political Data Scientist

GoodParty.org is looking for a Senior Political Data Scientist/Sr. Political Researcher/Sr. Data Analyst to join our mission to make people matter more than money in our democracy. In this role, you’ll use data, experiments, and quantitative models to support independent candidates at every level, helping them run smarter, win more often, and serve their communities better. You’ll join a fully remote, fast-growing startup where your work directly shapes the future of our democracy.

About GoodParty.org:

GoodParty.org is on a mission to make people matter more than money in our democracy by empowering independent candidates to run, win, and serve. Our AI-powered platform provides free tools to independent candidates to run their campaigns, connect with voters, and serve their communities effectively.

A majority of eligible voters, including more than half of Millennials and Gen Z, say that neither Republicans nor Democrats represent them. GoodParty.org is the solution. In 2024 we empowered 3,444 independent candidate wins across 48 states from all across the ideological spectrum. The only things our elected officials have in common is that they prioritize people over parties and community over corporate interests. In 2024, 40.3 votes (26% of all voters) cast a ballot for our candidates. We’re not a political party; we’re a platform and a movement to democratize democracy.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Farhad Mohit ($1B+ in exits, including Flipagram/TikTok and Shopzilla), GoodParty.org is building solutions so we can have a truly representative democracy where society’s biggest problems are solved.

What you’ll do:

• Develop, test, and refine quantitative models of electoral outcomes, including vote propensity, voter support scoring, and pathways to victory for independent candidates.

• Model constituencies and public service outcomes by collecting, imputing, and analyzing public opinion data to help independent candidates and public officials better understand and serve their communities.

• Implement and iterate on public opinion measurement methods (e.g., surveys or in-product feedback) to build feedback loops on constituent priorities.

• Design and run surveys and political field experiments to understand how independents can best run, win, and serve once in office.

• Find opportunities for natural experiments in our product, user, and election result data.

• Improve measurements of electoral and public service outcomes.

• Identify new data sources and improve the usage of our existing data on campaigns, elections, voting, and constituencies (e.g., improving our nationwide election identification system by surfacing candidate and election data as far ahead of each election as possible).

• Partner with engineering, operations, and product teams to incorporate new datasets and modeling into a scalable data pipeline and internal tools.

• Enhance product features for candidates and public officials through the application of political data and modeling best practices, while continuously improving our core political models.

• Work independently as a senior member of a small research team to drive measurable results quickly.

• Own a cycle of constant model improvement, aiming for steady, measurable accuracy gains and better decision-making week over week.

• Reports to the Research Director.

Who we’re looking for:

• You’re up for the audacious challenge of transforming our democracy for Good.

• You have 5+ years of relevant experience; or a Master’s degree in a quantitative or social science field (e.g., political science, statistics, economics, public policy, data science) and 3+ years of applied work experience; or a PhD with evidence of experience working quickly with concrete deliverables.

• You have a strong background applying data science, statistics, or computation to politics. This expertise could take many forms, but may include several of: econometrics, causal inference, sampling and survey design, political applications of machine learning and AI, or social scientific simulations.

• You have experience with public opinion data: either designing and fielding surveys