Staff Data Scientist - Quora (Remote)

About Quora

Quora is a privately-owned, remote-first organization dedicated to advancing global knowledge. The company operates two platforms: Quora, a knowledge-sharing site attracting millions monthly to exchange insights and learn, and Poe, a cloud workspace enabling users to run multiple AI agents using a shared context. Quora fosters an open culture emphasizing transparency, collaboration, and experimentation to drive meaningful work and collective growth.

Team and Role Overview

The Data Team at Quora holds significant influence over product and company strategy, valuing data-driven decision-making balanced with practical solutions. Joining this team means engaging with diverse data domains such as user growth, content quality, monetization, personalization, marketplace dynamics, and broader business strategies. The role focuses on developing measurements, designing experiments, creating visualizations, and exploring rich datasets to solve complex, open-ended problems related to Quora’s product.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of challenging, high-impact problems spanning product and business sectors, from precise question formulation through analysis and collaborating on solution implementation.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and leadership to guide product strategy and anticipate upcoming challenges.
• Design and conduct controlled experiments to assess product and strategic modifications effectively.
• Analyze comprehensive product data to diagnose underlying causes of changes in key metrics.
• Develop tools, processes, and frameworks that enhance both the data team's and broader organization's analytical capabilities.
• Elevate the performance of fellow data scientists through mentorship and by promoting best practices and process enhancements across the team.

Required Qualifications

• Availability during Quora’s coordination hours (Monday to Friday, 9am-3pm Pacific Time) for meetings and spontaneous discussions.
• At least seven years of professional experience in analytical or quantitative roles, with a minimum of five years as a Data Scientist or equivalent, demonstrating success in senior or staff-level positions requiring autonomy and scope.
• Proven capacity to address complex data challenges, often involving deep ownership of specific product areas and leadership of cross-team initiatives.
• Strong expertise in statistical methods such as regression, hypothesis testing, and causal inference, with practical application experience.
• Experience mentoring data scientists and enhancing team standards through implementation of best practices and workflow improvements.
• Effective communication skills that enable converting vague business problems into analytical inquiries and presenting technical insights clearly to executives and stakeholders.
• Proficiency in a procedural programming language (Python, R, etc.) for data manipulation, modeling, and analysis, with comfort working within production codebases.
• Sound judgment combining analytical rigor with intuitive product sense and practical reasoning.

Preferred Qualifications

• Over two years of experience in evaluating recommender systems both offline and via live experiments.
• Background in defining technical directions or strategic planning for teams or substantial projects.
• Familiarity with handling large-scale datasets and distributed computing technologies such as Presto or Trino.
• An active interest in Quora products driven by curiosity and engagement.

Additional Information

This position is open for continuous applications as it is a replacement for an existing role. Quora provides extensive benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, equity refreshers, remote work allowances, paid leave, and employee support programs, with offerings tailored to specific countries.

Starting salaries vary based on factors such as experience, education, location, and business needs. For U.S. applicants, salary ranges from 163,560 to 240,092 USD annually plus equity and benefits. For candidates in Toronto and Vancouver, the salary band is 210,013 to 246,625 CAD annually, and for other Canadian locations, it ranges from 196,012 to 230,183 CAD, also augmented by equity and benefits. Certain locations provide a flexible equity program allowing partial compensation in cash.

Quora values diversity and inclusivity and encourages qualified individuals from all backgrounds, including underrepresented groups, to apply. The hiring process includes identity verification and background checks for final candidates, with AI aiding application sorting but all hiring decisions made by human team members.