Staff Data Scientist

About the role

Join Life360's Ads team as a Staff Data Scientist to drive the development and deployment of advanced machine learning and optimization solutions. You will be instrumental in enhancing the effectiveness and scale of our advertising systems, directly impacting a core revenue stream for the company. This role offers a unique opportunity to own the end-to-end lifecycle of machine learning models within a fast-paced, AI-native environment.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design, build, and implement machine learning and optimization systems, collaborating closely with product, engineering, and analytics teams.
• Train, deploy, and scale machine learning models as production services or batch processes, integrating them into our advertising infrastructure.
• Develop comprehensive monitoring and alerting systems to track model performance, system health, and data drift.
• Implement robust data, code, and artifact lineage tracking for reproducibility and compliance.
• Contribute to improving our data infrastructure and pipelines to support experimentation and machine learning.
• Mentor junior data scientists and help establish best practices for machine learning operations.
• Utilize agentic AI tools daily for implementation tasks, code review, and analysis.
• Participate in an on-call rotation to address production incidents.

Requirements

• Advanced degree in a quantitative field or equivalent professional experience.
• Minimum of 8 years of experience in analyzing, implementing, and operating machine learning or optimization systems.
• Strong proficiency in Python, coupled with a solid understanding of software engineering principles like testing, modularization, and version control.
• Experience with ML lifecycle and data processing tools such as MLflow, Kubeflow, SparkML, Synapse ML, SQL, Spark/PySpark, dbt, and Airflow.
• Practical experience working with major cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Databricks, including knowledge of cloud networking, security, and storage.
• Excellent communication and project leadership abilities, with the capacity to influence cross-functional teams.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience with optimization problem-solving (e.g., linear programming, mixed-integer programming) applied to advertising use cases like budget allocation, bid optimization, or audience targeting.

Skills & tools

• Python
• MLflow
• Kubeflow
• SparkML
• Synapse ML
• SQL
• Spark/PySpark
• dbt
• Airflow
• AWS, GCP, or Databricks
• Agentic AI tools (e.g., Claude Code)

Practical notes

• Salary range for US-based candidates: $155,000 - $283,000 USD.
• Salary range for Canada-based candidates: $224,500 - $262,000 CAD.
• Compensation includes base pay, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package.
• Benefits include medical, dental, vision, financial, and other insurance plans.
• 401(k) with company match (US) or RRSP with DPSP (Canada).
• Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) and 12 company holidays.
• Support for remote work setup and learning and development programs.
• Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.