Lead Data Scientist (Senior Staff)

Whether you binge-watch a series on Netflix, plan faraway vacations from your phone, or read international news online, you’ve likely used Apollo’s technology this week. Apollo supports some of the largest GraphQL platforms in the world. We’re not looking to rest on our laurels though — we’re aiming to change how software is built. Apollo wants to empower every software team to build an amazing user experience across any number of clients, without dealing with a barrage of API endpoints. Are you with us?

About the Role:

We are building a best-in-class data practice and looking for a Lead Data Scientist to partner across the Product, Finance, Growth, and Go-to-Market teams. 

Our work is broad and varied, influencing how our product works (e.g. understanding user needs, product friction, product adoption across multiple user personas), how our business works (forecasting key outcomes, building strategic KPIs), how our go-to-market motions operate (designing growth experiments, optimizing marketing investments, refining sales processes, and estimating causal effects), and everything in between. While we have built out a solid data warehouse, our next step is to leverage this data and drive high impact by enabling the right strategic decisions for our product, business, and users. 

As the Lead Data Scientist at Apollo, you'll spearhead the establishment of our Data Science practice, serving as the founding member of the team. You’ll work closely with specific parts of the business, playing a crucial role in optimizing our systems and leveraging data to make strategic business decisions. You'll design and implement systems that ensure Apollo's strategy, products, and user interactions are driven by intelligent data usage. Leveraging techniques like machine learning, statistical modeling, causal inference, optimization, experimentation, and advanced analytics, you'll turn our rich data into actionable insights. You will bring a combination of technical expertise, leadership, and a proven track record of delivering high-impact results.

About You:

You care deeply about working effectively across cross-functional teams to drive meaningful outcomes. You’re genuinely excited to be a part of building the infrastructure of the future and thrive on continuous learning. With insatiable curiosity, humility, and dedication to mastering your craft, you approach challenges with a growth mindset - believing the work is truly never finished and that there's always something to learn from others. If these qualities resonate with you and you meet the minimum requirements, we strongly encourage you to apply.

What You Bring

• [Domain] Deep expertise in building the right systems for data analysis, modeling, visualization and prediction, to land optimal business outcomes.
• [Technical Leadership] Expert problem solver, able to balance technical requirements, with human elements, business constraints, and broader project context, to effectively drive trade-offs amidst high ambiguity. Assume hands-on leadership, especially when helping teams set their long-term vision and resolve complex problems through iterative execution.
• [Project management]: Proficient in planning projects, managing requirements across key stakeholders, and ensuring ethical data practices. 
• [Collaboration]: Working with the executive team, and key cross-functional stakeholders to identify opportunities and implement models to influence the org effectively. 
• [Communication]: Presenting findings to stakeholders and communicating complex insights to non-technical audiences.

Minimum Qualifications

• ~10 years of data science/quantitative modeling experience to solve business and product problems.
• Proficiency in SQL and a computing language such as Python or R.
• Strong knowledge and hands-on experience in several of the following areas: machine learning, statistics, optimization, product analytics, causal inference, and/or experimentation.
• Demonstrated experience of leading organization-wide initiatives spanning multiple teams, or leveraging deep domain and business expertise to influence technical roadmap planning and execution.
• Ability to communicate results clearly with a focus on driving impact.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate across multiple teams and stakeholders to drive business outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to balance execution and velocity with research, statistical depth, and scalable design.
• A builder's mindset with a willingness to question assumptions and conventional wisdom.

*There may be a requirement to participate in on-call rotation

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing, running, and analyzing complex experiments or leveraging causal inference designs.
• Experience working in Growth on problems like attribution, channel performance optimization, CAC optimization and experimentation.
• Experience with distributed tools such as Spark, Hadoop, etc.
• A PhD or MS in a quantitative field (e.g., Statistics, Engineering, Mathematics, Economics, Quantitative Finance, Sciences, Operations Research).
• Experience developing and deploying metric frameworks.

At Apollo, we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring consistency within the team in each country. We make hiring decisions based on your skills, experience, and our overall assessment of what we learned during the hiring process. In addition to the U.S. base salary range, we also provide equity and benefits. Apollo offers all U.S. employees a choice of 3 Anthem Blue Cross medical plans and California residents can also choose from an additional 2 Kaiser medical plans. Dental and Vision benefits are provided by Sun Life Financial.

Location: This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere in the US or Canada and may require travel.

Equal Opportunity: Apollo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a talented and diverse workforce.

Privacy: California residents applying for positions at Apollo can see our privacy policy here.

E-Verify: Apollo is an E-Verify employer and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. For more information please visit E-Verify.