Staff Data Scientist - Ads (AI Native)

About the role

Life360 is a Remote First company, which means a remote work environment will be the primary experience for all employees. All positions, unless otherwise specified, can be performed remotely (within the US and Canada) regardless of any specified location above.

What You’ll Do

• Partner with Product, Data Science, Cloud Engineering, and Data Engineering to design, develop, and deploy machine learning and optimization solutions.
• Train, deploy, and scale machine learning models as high-availability microservices or batch processing workflows, working with infrastructure and backend engineers to integrate model outputs directly into our ads systems.
• Establish unified logging, alerting, and monitoring solutions to track model inference performance, system latency, resource utilization, data drift, and concept drift.
• Implement robust lineage tracking for data, code, and algorithmic artifacts to ensure compliance, reproducibility, and security across the entire development and operational lifecycle.
• Work with data engineering to improve the data ecosystem, ensuring robust, scalable pipelines for experimentation and ML.
• Mentor other Data Scientists and help define best practices and technical architectures for machine learning engineering and scalable ML service ops.
• Use agentic AI tools (Claude Code or equivalent) as a core part of your daily workflow — delegating implementation tasks, running parallel workstreams, and critically reviewing AI-generated code and analysis before it ships.
• Handle on-call rotation and address live production incidents.

What We’re Looking For

• Required Education: Advanced degree in a quantitative field—or equivalent industry experience.
• Professional Experience: 8+ years of experience analyzing, implementing, and operating machine learning and/or optimization systems.
• Programming Mastery: Strong proficiency in Python with deep familiarity with software engineering best practices (testing, modularization, version control, etc.).
• MLOps and Datastore Tooling: Familiarity with specialized ML lifecycle and data processing tools and platforms such as MLflow, Kubeflow, SparkML, Synapse ML, SQL, Spark/PySpark, dbt, and Airflow.
• Cloud Foundations: Practical experience operating within a major cloud ecosystem—e.g., AWS, GCP, Databricks—with a clear grasp of cloud networking, security, and storage tiers.
• Strong communication and project leadership skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional teams.

Nice to Have

• Hands-on experience formulating and solving optimization problems (e.g., linear programming, mixed-integer programming) for advertising use cases such as budget allocation, bid optimization, or audience targeting.

Core Expectations

• Problem-solving mindset - You structure ambiguous problems precisely before reaching for a tool, AI or otherwise.
• Collaborative approach - You can explain technical tradeoffs and articulate ideas effectively, work well across teams, and value diverse perspectives.
• Ownership mentality - You take responsibility for your work from design through production and beyond.
• AI-Native Expectations - Daily use - You use AI tooling (Claude Code or equivalent) as a genuine development partner every day: delegating discrete implementation tasks, running parallel workstreams, and writing the prompts and specs that make that possible. Judgment and ownership - You review AI-generated code, analysis, and models critically before they ship, and you're accountable for what reaches production regardless of whether a human or an agent wrote it.
• Velocity - You're expected to turn AI fluency into real output leverage, shipping and iterating on ML models faster than a comparable team working without AI-native workflows.
• Team leadership - You share what you learn, surfacing effective prompts, workflows, and guardrails so the rest of DSML gets better at working with AI, not just you.
• Continuous learning - You stay current on agentic AI and ML tooling and bring concrete recommendations back to the team, rather than waiting for tooling decisions to be made for you.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $137,000 to $252,000 USD for candidates based in the US and $198,000 to $233,000 CAD for candidates based out of Canada. We take into consideration an individual's background and experience in determining final salary; therefore, base pay offered may vary considerably depending on geographic location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The compensation package includes a wide range of medical, dental, vision, financial, and other benefits, as well as equity.

Benefits

• Competitive pay and benefits.
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance plans (100% paid for US employees).
• Supplemental plans for medical and dental for Canadian employees.
• 401(k) plan with company matching program in the US and RRSP with DPSP plan for Canadian employees.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental wellness.
• Flexible PTO and 12 company-wide days off throughout the year.
• Learning & Development programs.
• Equipment, tools, and reimbursement support for a productive remote environment.
• Free Life360 Platinum Membership for your preferred circle.

Our Values

• Be a Good Person - We have a team of high-integrity people you can trust.
• Be Direct With Respect - We communicate directly, even when it’s hard.
• Members Before Metrics - We focus on building an exceptional experience for families.
• High Intensity High Impact - We do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Our Commitment to Diversity

We believe that different ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better results. Together, we continue to build an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices of our employees. It fuels our innovation and connects us closer to our customers and the communities we serve. We strive to create a workplace that reflects the communities we serve and where everyone feels empowered to bring their authentic best selves to work. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Life360. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any legally protected status. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas.