[Remote] Data Scientist - Search

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Nextdoor is the essential neighborhood network that connects neighbors, public agencies, and businesses around local information. As a Senior Data Scientist on the Search team, you will shape how neighbors find relevant content, owning the data science behind query understanding and content retrieval, while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to improve the search experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop algorithms and models to optimize Search relevance, retrieval, and ranking - driving value for both neighbors and the businesses they discover
• Experiment design: ensure we run experiments efficiently and accurately, including monitoring early feature development through post-release follow-ups
• Develop and share key strategic insights through data analysis, including designing experiments and evaluating the performance and impact of data-driven content and ranking changes
• Build scalable metrics and dashboards to track Search performance and inform decisions across query understanding, retrieval, ranking, and downstream engagement
• Partner with cross-functional teams to support product development efforts (including product, design, engineering, marketing, and operations)
• Care deeply about data quality and empower employees to leverage data to help them succeed in their careers and help Nextdoor grow

Skills

• 5+ years of relevant Data Science experience
• Direct experience working on a Search, recommendations, or information retrieval product - familiarity with the core problems (query understanding, retrieval, ranking, relevance evaluation) and the metrics used to measure them
• Innate curiosity around finding meaningful insights that inform how we think about and develop our product and business strategies
• Working knowledge of ML models and - more importantly - the judgment to apply them to real business problems and to devise the right metrics for evaluating algorithms and ranking systems
• Strong working knowledge of experimentation, including designing and analyzing complex product A/B testing results, with fluency in handling interaction effects and long-term metric movement
• Expert knowledge of SQL and Python, including common scientific computing packages and data science tools such as numpy, pandas, and scikit-learn
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to synthesize, simplify, and explain complex problems to different types of audiences, including executives, and compile compelling narratives
• Experience working with ranking algorithms for unstructured content
• Experience designing, deploying, or monitoring ML production models
• Basic understanding of how to build RAG systems

Benefits

• We also expect to award a meaningful equity grant for this role. With quarterly vesting, your first vest date would be within the first 3 months of your start date.
• Nextdoor employees can choose between a variety of health plans, including a 100% covered employee only plan option, and we also provide a OneMedical membership for concierge care.

Company Overview

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