Staff Data Scientist

Title: Staff Data Scientist Location: San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA

Want to help us help others? We’re hiring! 

GoFundMe is the world's most powerful community for good, dedicated to helping people help each other. By uniting individuals and nonprofits in one place, GoFundMe makes it easy and safe for people to ask for help and support causes, for themselves and each other. Together, our community has raised more than $40 billion since 2010.

We’re looking for a Staff Data Scientist to help shape how GoFundMe uses data science to grow our impact across marketing, growth, and product. This role will serve as a senior individual contributor who leads high-impact workstreams across go-to-market and product surfaces, with a primary focus on helping the business make better decisions about audience strategy, acquisition, retention, personalization, experimentation, and investment efficiency.

You will partner closely with leaders across Data, Marketing, Product, Growth, Finance, and Engineering to define technical strategy, build scalable measurement and modeling frameworks, accelerate impact through modern AI-enabled workflows, and translate complex analyses into clear recommendations that improve outcomes for our users, customers, and business.

Candidates considered for this role will be located in the San Francisco Bay Area. There will be an in-office requirement of 3x a week.

The Job

• Lead high-impact data science initiatives across marketing, growth, and product, from problem definition through methodology, execution, interpretation, and recommendation.
• Define org-level technical strategy, identify high-leverage opportunities, and establish best practices for experimentation, causal measurement, modeling, AI-assisted development, and decision science.
• Design, analyze, and interpret experiments and quasi-experiments; build scalable frameworks to estimate incrementality, treatment effects, and long-term business value.
• Develop ML, uplift, heterogeneous treatment effect, and adaptive experimentation models to improve targeting, segmentation, personalization, lifecycle optimization, audience strategy, budget allocation, and product decisions.
• Partner with Marketing, Growth, Sales, Finance, and Product to evaluate acquisition, retention, ROI, user journeys, funnels, marketplace dynamics, donation conversion, and engagement.
• Use AI tools to accelerate prototyping, analysis, coding, debugging, documentation, and repetitive workflows without compromising quality, accuracy, or review standards.
• Translate complex analyses into clear recommendations for technical, non-technical, and executive audiences.
• Collaborate with Data, Analytics, and Product Engineering to improve instrumentation, data quality, experimentation infrastructure, and reusable data science workflows.
• Mentor data scientists and analysts through design reviews, model reviews, methodology discussions, AI-enabled workflows, and shared best practices.

You 

• 8+ years of experience leading data science, applied statistics, or machine learning projects with measurable business impact.
• Master’s degree or Ph.D. in a quantitative field, or equivalent applied experience coupled with a bachelor’s degree.
• Experience with marketing, growth, marketplace, and/or product optimization problems.
• Strong command of statistical inference, causal inference, uplift modeling, heterogeneous treatment effects, treatment/control frameworks, and incrementality measurement.
• Experience applying machine learning to targeting, personalization, segmentation, recommendation, lifecycle optimization, or similar problems.
• Familiarity with adaptive experimentation, including frequentist A/B tests, multi-arm bandits, contextual bandits, and/or related optimization methods.
• Advanced proficiency with SQL and Python for data extraction, transformation, modeling, and analysis.
• Experience using AI-assisted tools to increase the speed and quality of analysis, coding, iteration, and communication.
• Ability to define technical strategy, identify reusable patterns, and raise the quality of data science work across teams
• Strong business judgment and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, including experience presenting to executive audiences.
• Experience mentoring data scientists, analysts, or other technical team members.

Preferred 

• Experience with marketing measurement methods such as media mix modeling, multi-touch attribution, channel incrementality, forecasting, budget allocation, optimization, or ROI modeling.
• Experience with web, mobile, product, or marketplace analytics tools such as Amplitude, Google Analytics, Optimizely, or GrowthBook.
• Familiarity with modern data platforms and workflows such as Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, Airflow, Git, Looker, Tableau, or similar tools.
• Experience operationalizing AI or ML workflows with engineering partners.

Why you’ll love it here

• Make an Impact: Be part of a mission-driven organization making a positive difference in millions of lives every year.
• Innovative Environment: Work with a diverse, passionate, and talented team in a fast-paced, forward-thinking atmosphere.
• Collaborative Team: Join a fun and collaborative team that works hard and celebrates success together.
• Competitive Benefits: Enjoy competitive pay and comprehensive healthcare benefits.
• Holistic Support: Enjoy financial assistance for things like hybrid work, family planning, along with generous parental leave, flexible time-off policies, and mental health and wellness resources to support your overall well-being.
• Growth Opportunities: Participate in learning, development, and recognition programs to help you thrive and grow.
• Commitment to DEI: Contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion through ongoing initiatives and employee resource groups.
• Community Engagement: Make a difference through our volunteering program.

We live by our core values: impatient to be great, find a way, earn trust every day, fueled by purpose. Be a part of something bigger with us!

GoFundMe is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that actively pursues candidates of diverse backgrounds and experiences.  We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, nationality or national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, age, medical condition, mental or physical disability, or military or veteran status.

The annual U.S. salary range for this full-time position is $179,500 - $269,500. The company also offers equity and other benefits to employees, including healthcare, dental, vision, life insurance and 401(k) saving program. In addition to this wage, there are geolocation differentials that will increase pay depending on the work location. Additionally pay may vary depending on other factors including skills, experience, education, or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific total compensation package based on your location during the hiring process.

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants:

Depending on your location, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or certain US privacy laws may regulate the way we manage the data of job applicants. Our full notice outlining how data will be processed as part of the application procedure for applicable locations is available here. By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required.

Learn more about GoFundMe:

We’re proud to partner with GoFundMe.org, an independent public charity, to extend the reach and impact of our generous community, while helping drive critical social change. You can learn more about GoFundMe.org’s activities and impact in their FY ‘25 annual report.

Our annual “Year in Help” report reflects our community’s impact in advancing our mission of helping people help each other.

For recent company news and announcements, visit our Newsroom.

Notice to Applicants for Jobs Located in NYC or Remote Jobs Associated With Office in NYC Only

We use Metaview as part of our hiring process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an automated employment decision tool (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144. As part of the hiring process, we provide Metaview with job requirements and candidate submitted resumes and application materials to assist in evaluating job-related qualifications. While this tool is used to improve efficiency and support our recruiting personnel, all final hiring decisions are made by GoFundMe employees.