Director, Data Science/ML

Overview

CookUnity was founded in 2018 as a platform connecting chefs with home diners. Today, it delivers 50 million meals annually from top chefs. The company aims to empower chefs to nourish the world through innovative products and services.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the product data science strategy, identifying opportunities for ML and predictive analytics to improve customer experience and business outcomes
• Partner with Product, Growth, Engineering, and UX leadership to influence product roadmap with data-driven insights and forward-looking ML capabilities
• Build and lead a team focused on predictive modeling, personalization, experimentation frameworks, and emerging ML capabilities
• Own the end-to-end ML lifecycle for product use cases, including problem framing, feature development, model training, deployment, monitoring, and iteration
• Translate complex product challenges into clear data science problems with measurable success criteria
• Own the personalization and recommendation systems that drive engagement and conversion across the customer journey
• Design and implement robust experimentation frameworks that enable rapid, high-quality product testing and learning
• Develop causal inference methodologies to understand true incrementality of product changes
• Ensure models are observable, explainable where needed, and continuously improved post-launch
• Create career development pathways that attract and retain top data science talent
• Collaborate with Analytics Engineering to ensure seamless model deployment and monitoring

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data science, with at least 5 years in leadership roles managing data scientists or ML engineers
• Proven track record building and deploying ML models in production, particularly in personalization, recommendation systems, or predictive modeling
• Deep expertise in experimentation and causal inference, including A/B testing, incrementality measurement, and statistical rigor
• Strong product sense and business acumen—ability to identify high-impact opportunities and translate them into data science initiatives
• Experience in consumer tech, e-commerce, or marketplace businesses where personalization and user engagement are critical
• Excellent communication skills—ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and influence product strategy
• Hands-on technical proficiency in Python, SQL, and modern ML frameworks (scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Experience with cloud-based data infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Snowflake) and ML Ops tools (MLflow, Airflow, Kubeflow)
• PhD or Master's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related quantitative field
• Experience with real-time ML systems and feature stores
• Background in recommendation systems or two-tower/multi-modal embeddings
• Familiarity with generative AI and LLM applications in product contexts
• Experience building data science teams from scratch or through periods of rapid growth
• Prior work in subscription businesses or retention-focused products
• Knowledge of modern product analytics tools (Amplitude, MixPanel, Looker)

Qualifications

• Established product data science roadmap aligned with business priorities; shipped at least one high-impact ML model to production; built strong partnerships with Product and Engineering leadership
• Scaled the product data science function with key hires; delivered measurable improvements in personalization and customer engagement metrics; implemented robust experimentation frameworks used across product teams

Benefits

• Health Insurance coverage
• 401k Plan
• Stock Options Plan granted on Day 1
• Bi-annual performance bonus
• Unlimited PTO
• 5-year Sabbatical after 5 years with CookUnity
• Paid Family leave
• Compassionate Leave
• CookUnity credits to enjoy meals
• Wellness perks: access to fitness subsidies
• Ai-forward workplace: enterprise access to ChatGPT and Claude
• Personalized Spanish coach
• Awesome opportunity to join a company transforming the food industry

Pay

$240,000—$270,000 USD