Lead Data Scientist
Employment Opportunity
Golden Rat Studios is now hiring for its social gaming studio in Los Angeles, California. Founded by industry veterans, and backed by a publicly traded company, we’re looking for experienced, collaborative individuals who want to build the next generation of multiplayer social games, with a focus on China and Southeast Asia. Applications are now being accepted for the following position:
Lead Data Scientist
As our Lead Data Scientist, you’ll develop advanced machine learning algorithms and statistical models to provide deep insight into the performance of our games, and help deliver memorable player experiences. You’ll partner with our product team to implement effective metrics to test each game feature, and help translate player actions into actionable insights. You’ll work with our engineers, and combine your modeling and coding skills to create tools and infrastructure to level-up our data science approach. And you’ll work with our marketing team to measure the success of our numerous multi-channel campaigns.
This is a full-time position at our Los Angeles studio, (remotes and contractors need not apply).
Responsibilities:
- Guide all aspects of the company’s data collection, modeling and reporting efforts.
- Retrieve and analyze all player and game data, develop and test hypotheses, extract useful information, and report actionable insights that can help us improve players’ experiences;
- Bring data science to life by working with our engineers to identify opportunities to improve our data ecosystem, and architect, develop and deploy advanced machine learning algorithms and predictive models;
- Bring fresh perspective and new dimensions of analysis to bear on the challenge of identifying what we could do better, and continuously validate our evolving approach;
- Leverage the data to support decision-making on all levels of our business. In particular, support the game design team ensure game features have the necessary data points to measure their effectiveness;
- Foster data-driven decisions, continually thinking of ways to quantifiably express insights about features and economies.
- Ensure the integrity and accuracy of all data collected and reports produced;
- Continually refine the company’s efforts around data visualization and pattern recognition, and automate where possible.
Qualifications:
- Masters degree (Phd is a plus) or equivalent in Statistics, Computer Science, Math, Physics, or an applied quantitative field;
- Broad knowledge of machine learning, statistical modeling, algorithm design, distributed systems, database structure; software engineering, and data visualization;
- 3+ years of analytics/data-mining experience in social and/or mobile games (experience with social casino games a plus);
- A firm grasp of SQL and NoSQL databases, cloud environments, streaming, as well as PostgreSQL and the Hadoop ecosystem (Hadoop, Hive, Spark);
- Ability to write well-abstracted and reusable code in R, and ideally Python or Java;
- A skilled lateral thinker, pulling insight from data and providing unique perspectives on problems;
- Familiarity with visualization and attribution platforms, RStudio-Connect and Tableau in particular;
- In-depth knowledge of mobile game environments (devices, operating systems, etc.), as well as game mechanics, virtual currencies, and in-app purchasing;
- Thirst for understanding why and how social games retain and monetize players;
- Player-focused: as a gamer yourself, you know the importance of listening to player needs, especially the implicit needs that can only be uncovered by analyzing and understanding player data;
- Excellent verbal and written communications skills.
- Fluency in Mandarin is a plus (but not required)