Data Scientist - Audience Team

The Trade Desk is a global technology company with a mission to create a better, more open internet for everyone through principled, intelligent advertising. Handling over 1 trillion queries per day, our platform operates at an unprecedented scale. We have also built something even stronger and more valuable: an award-winning culture based on trust, ownership, empathy, and collaboration. We value the unique experiences and perspectives that each person brings to The Trade Desk, and we are committed to fostering inclusive spaces where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work every day.

Do you have a passion for solving hard problems at scale? Are you eager to join a dynamic, globally-connected team where your contributions will make a meaningful difference in building a better media ecosystem? Come and see why Fortune magazine consistently ranks The Trade Desk among the best small- to medium-sized workplaces globally.

What we do:

Our team is responsible for the development of algorithms that help power our Audience Targeting with the ultimate goal of helping thousands of customers run effective advertising campaigns. Many of our problems involve deep learning algorithms to train and develop inference at scale. Some of the challenges include the parsing of noisy labels and data, working with large output spaces (thousands of labels), and unreliable ground truth. Data scientists on our team work closely with engineering throughout the lifecycle of the product, from ideation to productionalization and monitoring.

Our data scientists are end-to-end owners. You will participate actively in all aspects of designing, researching, building, and delivering data-focused products for our clients. We are a team built on a foundation of generosity and openness, and we expect our data scientists to help make others better and raise the bar for those around them. As a Data Scientist, you will contribute meaningfully through leading others.

Who you are:

• You have a sustained track record of making significant, self-directed end-to-end contributions to complex multi-layered impactful machine learning projects.
• You think beyond just the task at hand to deeply understand the 'why' behind what you are doing and anticipate problems that may be several degrees removed from obvious requirements.
• You make your team better by proactively advocating for and driving improvements not just to what the team produces, but also the ways in which the team works.
• You have a strong sense of data intuition. At our scale, many off-the-shelf modeling techniques (open source and enterprise) simply don't work.
• You are able to work from first principles to develop solutions and adapt them to a unique environment.
• You are a broadly skilled data scientist with deep expertise working with embedded models in always-on production systems and working across a variety of technologies and data sources.
• You have a product-focused mindset.
• You have the passion and ability to contribute to the process of discovering what will delight our clients and push forward one of the world’s largest and most influential industries toward a vision of openness, transparency, and evidence-based decision-making.
• You work with confidence and without ego. Our data scientists have deep knowledge and exercise a high degree of leadership in their daily work.
• You have strongly-held, defensible ideas, and advocate for what you believe is right. You are also adept at identifying and evaluating trade-offs, willing to be proven wrong, and quick to support your fellow teammates.
• You value, seek out, and foster diversity. We are a global team from many diverse backgrounds, with different experiences and perspectives. To complement this team, you will welcome ideas that are different from your own and be skilled at finding and building from common ground.
• You are a creative thinker, not bound by "the way things have always been done." What you know is less important than how well you learn and innovate. We don't need data scientists who know all the answers; we need data scientists who can invent the answers no one has thought of yet, to the questions yet to be asked.
• You have an abundance of intellectual curiosity and are enthusiastic to learn (and teach) new technologies/techniques.
• You are comfortable working on an agile, distributed team spanning multiple time zones and continents.
• You are able to communicate effectively across both technical and non-technical audiences.

What you bring to the table:

We do not expect you to know every technology we use when you start at TTD. What we care most about is that you can learn quickly and solve complex problems using the best tools for the job. However, we find that the most successful candidates typically come in with something like the following experience:

• BS/MS with 4+ years or a PhD with 2+ years of experience working in a DS or ML role that involves bringing products from ideation to production.
• Experience in deep learning, TensorFlow/PyTorch preferred.
• The ability to communicate with diverse stakeholders, making architecture recommendations, ensuring effective execution, and measuring quality of outcomes.
• Experience running heavy workloads on a distributed computing cluster (especially EMR or Databricks), leveraging technologies like Spark to work with large datasets preferred.
• Proficient in at least two of: R, Python, Java, or Scala. Expert at one of those. Strong SQL skills.
• Proficient in software engineering concepts like containerization and version control preferred.

Equal Opportunity Statement:

The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

Compensation Information:

In accordance with NY, CO, CA, and WA law, the range provided is The Trade Desk's reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may differ based on non-discriminatory factors such as experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, and location. All employees may be eligible to become The Trade Desk shareholders through eligibility for stock-based compensation grants, which are awarded to employees based on company and individual performance. The Trade Desk also offers other compensation depending on the role such as sales-based incentives and commissions. Plus, expected benefits for this role include comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents, retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, well-being benefits, reimbursement for certain tuition expenses, parental leave, sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked, vacation time for full-time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter, and around 13 paid holidays per year. Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

The Trade Desk also offers a competitive benefits package. Click here to learn more.

Note: Interns are not eligible for variable incentive awards such as stock-based compensation, retirement plan, vacation, tuition reimbursement or parental leave.

At The Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary range. The base salary range for this role is $100,400—$184,000 USD.