Employer: Vacasa
Why Vacasa?
We started with just one home and an idea: to bring homeowners and renters together with smart technology and caring local teams. Today, we’re the largest full-service vacation rental company in the US thanks to the people who give us their best every day. You’ll fit right in here if you’re curious, entrepreneurial, and thrive in a rapid-growth environment.
What were looking for
As a lead data scientist at Vacasa, you will be on the front-lines of our efforts to use data science and machine learning to capitalize on multi-million dollar business opportunities. You’ll use large and complex datasets of first and third-party data to achieve your goals. This is a great role for a strong individual contributor looking to make a jump to a senior position mentoring others, or an existing tech lead looking to make the jump to an exciting hypergrowth environment where you experiment quickly and get things done fast.
What you’ll do
Vacasa is at the sweet spot for machine learning and AI in that we have 1) lots of data (from our 25,000 homes as well as our channel partners and our own guest app and website), 2) problems that require smart software algorithms (pricing 25,000 homes, sending email recommendations to 1 million guests, etc.), and the 3) growth that demands we invest in methods to use 1 to solve 2, and do it quickly.
You’ll use your knowledge of data science and machine learning algorithms to help our nimble team solve problems like how we build models to dynamically charge the right price for each of our 25,000 units for each of 540 days into the future, how we rank our units on our search engine results pages in order to maximize guest conversion rate and revenue, and how we estimate how much a prospective home might be able to make as a Vacasa rental based on its characteristics and location. You’ll be in jupyter notebooks of your own creation and your colleague’s daily, using libraries like Tensor Flow, scikit-learn, pandas, and plotly to build and test models, write up the results, and present findings to key stakeholders. You’ll also mentor more junior team members, helping them grow into top-notch data scientists and machine learning engineers.
What You’ll Need:
- 5+ years of combined data science and engineering experience with at least three of those on a machine learning team, with a track record of putting models into production and growing individual responsibilities
- Expert-level SQL – most of our data is in Redshift and you should have well-honed skills at accessing it
- Insatiable curiosity and analytical bent — you are willing to ask questions until you get answers
- Strong python experience – a few years experience writing code in a production environment is preferred. We work in an engineering environment where we are putting models into production and you’ll need to be able to track appropriately and keep up with the team.
- Expert-level knowledge of data science libraries such as pandas, numpy, tensor-flow / keras or pytorch, scikit-learn, plotly (or equivalent)
- Strong familiarity with a gamut of data science and machine learning approaches, including neural networks, random forest and GBTs, KNNs, k-means clustering, various types of regressions, and Bayesian techniques
- Ability to function in a “big data” environment including an intermediate to expert knowledge of Spark or the ability and interest to quickly learn it on-the-job
- Familiarity with AWS ecosystem and tools such as Glue, SageMaker, Athena, and Fargate
- Familiarity with Docker or other container systems
- Intelligence, humility, candor, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment
- You like to get things right and ship things quickly, but you can appropriately balance the inherent conflict between the two
- Masters or above in Computer Science or a related field is preferred but not required
- Ability to work from home and resides in one of the followings states: AK, AL, AZ, CA, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NH, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, or WY
What you’ll get:
- Health/dental/vision insurance—100% coverage option
- Employer-Sponsored & Voluntary Supplemental Benefits
- 401K retirement savings plan with immediate 100% company match on the first 6% you contribute
- Health & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
- Paid vacation & sick days
- Paid holidays
- Paid parental leave after one year of tenure
- Employee Assistance Program
- Career advancement opportunities
- Employee discounts
- All the equipment you’ll need to be successful
- Great colleagues and culture
