Staff Data Scientist

DuckDuckGo is an online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ employees founded in 2008, profitable since 2014, with annual revenue exceeding $100m USD. The company offers a privacy-focused browser available on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, a search engine, a subscription service, and private AI services including Duck.ai which integrates ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI models.

• 10+ years of experience in Data Science, including 2+ years at Staff, Principal, or Director level
• Proven track record of leading high-complexity projects from scoping to production with minimal direction
• Comfortable advising others on complex data science work
• Ability to develop strategies for ambiguous, complex data science problems and turn them into well-defined projects
• Hands-on experience deploying machine learning in production, developing NLP solutions, and AI-assisted development
• Proficient in writing production-grade code in Python or a comparable high-level language
• Advanced SQL and query optimization skills
• Effective collaboration with product teams to contribute to overall team throughput

Nice to have:

• Experience running search-specific projects (ranking, retrieval, or indexing) from scoping to production
• Experience working with large-scale search infrastructure such as Vespa, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or Solr

• Improve first-phase ranking quality and precision without sacrificing latency
• Develop new lexical-matching and document-authority signals
• Expand search evaluations to measure relevancy readiness and surface ranking blindspots
• Investigate large language models (LLMs) for feature generation and ranking
• Drive product and business impact through search improvements

• Remote work with requirement to attend video meetings on camera
• Expected travel at least twice a year for all-hands meetup and team retreat (each 4-5 days)
• Flexible work arrangement with no core hours, average 40 hours per week commitment
• Successful candidate must pass a background check
• Compliance with truthful information submission during application process is mandatory
• Use of AI technology in the hiring process with human oversight
• Equal opportunity employer prohibiting discrimination on multiple protected characteristics
• Accommodation available for medical conditions or disabilities upon request