About this role
Analytical professionals who thrive on extreme ownership and practical problem-solving will find a natural home in this role. Kikoff operates a profitable fintech platform designed to help millions of consumers build credit and manage their finances. Working within a data organization of around twenty people, this person will serve as the data lead for a core product area alongside engineering, product, and design peers.
Day-to-day responsibilities center on shaping technical direction, building measurement frameworks, and integrating AI agents into analytical workflows. The position exists to ensure that every product delivers durable value while maintaining business health. Ideal candidates bring deep technical judgment in SQL and Python, coupled with a track record of driving product decisions through rigorous experimentation and causal inference.
What you will do
- Lead data initiatives for a core product area by formulating key questions, gathering evidence, and guiding strategic next steps.
- Define and oversee comprehensive measurement systems tracking the entire customer journey from activation to revenue.
- Design and manage product experimentation frameworks, including handling scenarios where clean randomization is unavailable.
- Establish evaluation protocols for AI surfaces by building automated scorers and maintaining regression tests based on real user interactions.
- Develop and evaluate predictive or classification models, handling proof-of-concept stages and collaborating with engineering on production monitoring.
- Partner closely with product, engineering, design, and marketing leads to shape product roadmaps and define success criteria.
- Elevate team standards by reviewing peer work, participating in technical direction, and mentoring early-career team members.
What you need
- Demonstrated experience partnering across product, engineering, and marketing functions from strategy through execution.
- A proven track record of defining metrics from scratch for complex products and aligning teams around them.
- Practical background in designing and running experimentation programs, including quasi-experimental and causal inference methods.
- Hands-on proficiency with production-quality SQL and Python for building pipelines, analyses, and models.
- Experience building or working closely with decision-driving models such as ranking, fraud detection, personalization, or LLM applications.
- Active use of AI tools in daily analytical work to accelerate delivery and maintain high quality.
- Ability to present data-driven insights effectively to senior stakeholders, even when findings challenge existing plans.
Nice to have
- Built or ran an evaluation program for an LLM-based product.
- Consumer fintech experience focused on expanding access for un- and under-banked customers.
- Experience building an experimentation or causal inference practice in an organization without one.
- Taken a model from proof of concept to production or shipped challenger models that altered product decisions.
- Mentored, onboarded, or managed the work of other data scientists.
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
Where is this role located?
This position is based in San Francisco.
What is the salary range for this position?
The base salary range is $226,000 to $254,000 USD.
What kind of team will I be working with?
This role sits with data scientists embedded in Kikoff's core credit-building products, working alongside a Marketing DS partner and a data engineering team.
What are the expectations regarding AI tools?
AI tools are expected to be a core part of daily analytical work, and candidates must demonstrate how these tools change the speed and quality of what they ship.