Staff Data Scientist

About the Position

Staff Data Scientist

At Preply, we're all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalized learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact.

We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale.

Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

Responsibilities

As a Staff Data Scientist, you will:

• Develop and formalize a strategic understanding of the key value drivers of your domain, including user behavior, marketplace dynamics, pricing, and long-term unit economics - and translate these into actionable decision frameworks used by leadership.
• Define the long-term measurement and experimentation strategy for your domain, identifying structural growth levers and step-change opportunities beyond incremental optimization.
• Design the experimentation programme in your domain and execute, and evaluate large-scale experiments to test new ideas and measure their effectiveness in driving business outcomes.
• Lead deep analytical investigations into customer behavior and retention dynamics, reframing ambiguous business questions into structured analyses that drive step-change improvements in long-term value.
• Own impact modeling and scenario analysis for major product initiatives, enabling quarterly and annual planning decisions through robust forecasting, trade-off analysis, and risk assessment.
• Own the definition and governance of key metrics within your domain, ensuring clarity, consistency, and alignment with company-level objectives.
• Act as a senior thought partner to product, engineering, and data leaders, driving alignment across teams and elevating analytical standards across the organization.
• Lead cross-domain analytical initiatives (e.g., company-wide LTV modeling, pricing strategy, marketplace health framework).

Requirements

• Demonstrated track record of materially influencing product or business strategy in complex environments, with clear examples of company-level impact.
• Expertise in experimentation and causal inference, including operating under imperfect conditions, resolving ambiguity, and guiding high-stakes decisions where clean experiments are not always feasible.
• Strong understanding of subscription and marketplace economics, including LTV modeling, cohort dynamics, retention mechanics, pricing trade-offs, and long-term value optimization.
• Strong technical proficiency (e.g., SQL, Python) with the ability to review and elevate the analytical work of others, set coding standards, and design scalable analytical workflows.
• Experience mentoring and technically guiding senior data scientists, contributing to the overall growth and maturity of the data organization.
• Curiosity, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, as well as the ability to proactively identify and address challenges.
• Ability to influence Directors and VP-level stakeholders, navigate conflicting incentives, and drive clarity in high-stakes strategic discussions.
• Interest in the bigger picture, feeling excited to impact the product roadmap and strategy.

Nice to Have

• Background in 2-sided marketplaces or digital businesses (B2C, B2B2C).
• Experience with product analytics tools (e.g. Amplitude, Mixpanel, Heap).
• Experience applying advanced analytical methods (e.g., forecasting, causal modeling, pricing optimization) to drive structural business improvements.
• Familiarity with data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Looker, Power BI).
• Master's degree or PhD in a quantitative field.
• Demonstrated experience developing Senior Data Scientists and contributing to raising the analytical bar across teams.

We Offer

• An open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture;
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com, Learning & Development budget and time off for your self-development;
• A competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance and health insurance;
• Access to free mental health support platforms;
• The opportunity to unlock the potential of learners and tutors through language learning and teaching in 175 countries (and counting!).

About the Company

Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.