Director - Data Science

Adara, a RateGain Company, is one of the world’s largest data exchange platforms, providing access to ethically sourced customer data. With 270+ global partners who supply aggregated real-time traveler data, we deliver actionable insights and predictive intelligence to drive better marketing ROI. Built on the world’s richest travel data co-op, Adara helps brands win in the fast-paced digital economy with 4 billion searches and over 23 billion data elements across 100+ countries. For more information, visit https://adara.com/

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Data Scientist with 8+ years of industry experience to join our growing Data Science team. In this role, you will apply cutting-edge machine learning and statistical techniques to solve complex business problems in digital advertising. You will take ownership of greenfield projects from ideation to productionization, while also conducting applied research to explore emerging methods and technologies. You will collaborate with engineers, analysts, and product managers to design and deliver scalable solutions that drive measurable impact.

Responsibilities

• Research & Innovation: Explore emerging data science techniques and ad tech methodologies and apply them to real-world challenges.
• Greenfield Projects: Drive end-to-end projects — from ideation, prototyping, and experimentation to production deployment and operationalization.
• Model Development: Build and deploy statistical and machine learning models to optimize campaign performance, targeting, bidding, and personalization.
• Data Analysis: Analyze large, complex datasets to uncover actionable insights and inform product and business decisions.
• Experimentation: Design, execute, and interpret A/B tests and other experiments to validate hypotheses and measure the causal impact of changes.
• Collaboration: Work with data engineers and analysts to design and maintain robust data pipelines and feature stores that support production ML models.
• Visualization & Communication: Clearly communicate findings through dashboards, visualizations, and presentations for both technical and business stakeholders.
• Continuous Learning: Stay current with emerging data science methodologies, tools, and technologies, and apply them to improve model performance and operational efficiency.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in a quantitative field such as Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or Physics.
• Programming Skills: Proficiency in Python, and strong SQL skills for working with large datasets.
• Machine Learning Expertise: Deep experience with ML algorithms, statistical modeling techniques, deep neural networks, natural language processing, recommendation engines, time series forecasting, A/B testing, and causal inference.
• Technical Tools: Hands-on experience with ML libraries such as scikit-learn, TensorFlow, and PyTorch.
• Visualization: Proficiency with data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, matplotlib, seaborn) to translate analysis into clear business insights.
• Soft Skills: Excellent analytical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills, with the ability to translate technical findings into business recommendations.

Nice-to-Have

• Prior ad tech experience in programmatic advertising, campaign optimization, or audience targeting.
• Experience with LLMs, Generative AI, AI agents, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) workflows for building intelligent ad solutions.
• Familiarity with cloud-based ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, Databricks).

Why Join Us?

• Be at the forefront of AdTech innovation, shaping the future of travel data applications.
• Leverage an unparalleled travel data cooperative that has created the largest travel data asset for marketing and analytics globally
• Work in a dynamic and collaborative environment that values creativity and ambition.
• Enjoy competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and professional growth opportunities.

ADARA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law. While performing the duties of this job, the work environment may require an individual to be able to sit or be stationary at a computer and use computers for extended periods, and move freely around the building.