Director, Data Science

Location

Remote; Austria (Remote); Bulgaria (Remote); Czechia (Remote); Estonia (Remote); Hungary (Remote); Iceland (Remote); Ireland (Remote); Poland (Remote); Portugal (Remote); Romania (Remote); Slovakia (Remote); South Africa (Remote); Spain (Remote); Switzerland (Remote); United Kingdom (Remote); United States (Remote)

Employment Type

Full time

Department

Data Science

Compensation

• United States: $263,300 USD annually
• United Kingdom: £183,850 GBP annually
• Canada: C$346,250 CAD annually
• Europe/Rest of World: €214,950 EUR annually

Compensation is the same within a professional level, regardless of geographic location or functional area, and the compensation for each professional level is transparent across the organization.

About the Position

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 400+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, our annual revenue is in the hundreds of millions USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with AIs, all in one place.

Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!

Responsibilities

As a Director, Data Science, you'll help shape our all-in-one privacy solution and join our mission to show the world that protecting your privacy online can be simple. You will:

• Drive product and business impact by developing data scientists, setting clear expectations for them, providing hands-on mentorship, and removing blockers.
• Guide and advise multiple data science projects to stay on track and have timely delivery with maximum impact.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to validate direction through data, build trust in organizational tactics and strategy by consulting on experiments, and become an expert in our core metrics like searches, installs, and revenue.
• Drive improvement of the data pipeline.
• Develop strategies for surfacing more actionable insights in an evidence-first culture where quantitative rigor is the baseline, not the exception.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data science or ML engineering, with 4+ years leading teams, and a track record of setting multi-team roadmaps and adapting swiftly as priorities shift.
• Experience driving organizational culture toward data-driven decision-making and translating technical tradeoffs and risks clearly for executives and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Enjoy coaching experienced data scientists who are already highly skilled. Provide direct, actionable feedback and build teams where people do the best work of their careers.
• Deploy and iterate ML and NLP solutions in production at expert level, with deep knowledge of when to reach for which tools - especially in constrained environments requiring fast responses and strict privacy standards.
• Write production-grade code in Python or a comparable high-level language and stay close to the technical work when it matters most.
• Advanced SQL and query optimization skills, familiarity with columnar databases like BigQuery, Clickhouse, Redshift, or Druid.
• Strong LLM/AI experience including fine-tuning, LLM-as-judge evaluation, and AI-assisted development, and can design, implement, and analyze experiments across product surfaces using sparse or privacy-constrained data.
• Preferred: experience at a consumer-facing tech company where data or analytics is core to the product strategy.

We Offer

• Competitive salary
• Transparent compensation across the organization
• Team Member Support including paid parental leave, office setup, and co-working allowances

About the Company

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send an email to [email protected] to let us know the nature of your request.

Hiring Process

Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. Learn how we help you get to know DuckDuckGo, envision your future role here, and find out more about how we hire.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

Please Note

• You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing.
• Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.
• While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.
• A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.
• By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

As part of our commitment to enhancing our recruitment process, we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects, including those tools integrated into our recruitment vendor platforms. We use AI to flag potentially fraudulent applications, analyze and summarize applicants’ experience, interviews, and project performance, and help streamline our selection process.

Key Principles:

• Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.
• Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.
• Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!

#LI-DNI