Staff Data Scientist
About the Role
The Predictive Index—the talent optimization leader—is an award-winning best place to work. Our mission is “Better work, Better world,” and we take great pride in PI’s power to supercharge workplace relationships and culture. You’ll be working toward a mission that inspires you, surrounded by fun, smart, driven people.
We’re looking for a Staff Data Scientist to establish the data science function from the ground up in a new venture for PI. You’ll define the discipline, set the methods, standards, and infrastructure. As the subject matter expert, you’ll own the evidence behind every claim, metric, and insight, ensuring each withstands scrutiny from HR buyers, product leaders, or board reviewers.
This role offers full ownership of a scientific function within a venture that operates with the independence of a startup and the credibility of a 70-year-old science brand. You’ll make foundational decisions about what and how we measure.
Responsibilities
- Own the evidence layer of the venture, end-to-end, turning product and customer signals into defensible knowledge about client outcomes.
- Set the standard for rigor by defining experimental methods, statistical bars, and analytical practices, and be the final authority on result validity.
- Build the foundation from scratch: instrumentation, data pipelines, dashboards, and analytics infrastructure.
- Identify what drives outcomes by correlating product signals with client results, separating meaningful insights from superficial metrics.
- Run experiments to validate or disprove hypotheses quickly, building feedback loops that compound the venture’s advantage.
- Shape strategy by partnering with Product, GTM, and Behavioral Science as a peer decision-maker, bringing evidence to influence roadmaps and market theses.
- Extend the data science function over time by establishing scalable practices, documentation, and standards.
Requirements
- 7+ years of staff-level experience as a data scientist in product environments, with strong opinions about best practices and the judgment to adapt them.
- Track record of building product analytics from scratch, including instrumentation, pipelines, and dashboards in live environments.
- Deep expertise in running product experiments with statistical rigor, knowing when results are valid, noisy, or inconclusive.
- Ability to operate as the sole subject matter expert, setting direction without peer oversight and earning trust for scientific accuracy.
- Fluency in translating ambiguous business questions into tractable data problems and communicating answers to non-technical stakeholders.
- Comfort working at the frontier where research, product, and GTM strategies are still evolving, with the maturity to bring order to ambiguity.
- Graduate degree (or equivalent experience) in Statistics, Data Science, Computer Science, Econometrics, Quantitative Psychology, or a related field.
- Passion for leveraging AI in all aspects of work, using modern tools to sharpen thinking and extend capacity.
- A builder’s mindset and seniority to match; this team moves fast and expects ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.
Benefits
- Unlimited PTO.
- 401(k) retirement plan.
- Flexible work options: hybrid, remote, or in-office at our Westwood, MA headquarters.
- Full access to PI’s benefits package.
Pay
$170,000 - $220,000 (exempt, salaried position).
Culture
You’ll be one of twelve people on a team operating like a venture-backed startup, with its own stack, cadence, and mandate. The team values flexibility, collaboration, and ownership, guided by the THREADS framework:
- Teamwork: Focus on the “we,” not the “me.”
- Honesty: Follow your moral compass.
- Reliability: Be someone others can count on.
- Energy: Be balanced, be energized.
- Action: Errors of action are better than errors of inaction. Be brave.
- Drive: Own it.
- Scope: Don’t try to boil the ocean.