Senior Data Scientist, Distribution & Partnerships

Yahoo serves as a trusted guide for hundreds of millions of people globally, helping them achieve their goals online through our portfolio of iconic products. For advertisers, Yahoo Advertising offers omnichannel solutions and powerful data to engage with our brands and deliver results.

About The Team

The Yahoo homepage is one of the most visited destinations on the internet. Our Yahoo News Group Analytics Team is the engine that powers its evolution, using rigorous experimentation and advanced analytics to improve the daily habits of millions of users. We are a high-autonomy team that values statistical integrity, clear communication, and an AI-forward approach to solving complex product problems.

About The Role

We are hiring a Senior-level Data Scientist to lead analytics for Yahoo.com News Group distribution and syndication partnerships. In this role, you will define how we measure the success of distribution deals — across carriers, OEMs, and browsers — and build the analytical foundation that informs both how we manage existing partnerships and where we pursue new ones.

You will partner closely with Business Development, Product, and Engineering to evaluate partnership performance and surface market opportunities. On the BD side, your role is highly strategic and analytical — conducting market landscape analysis to identify distribution whitespace, size opportunities, and deliver prioritized, data-backed targets that the BD team can act on. This is greenfield work within our domain: you will be expected to bring order to highly ambiguous environments, formulate new measurement frameworks from scratch, and ensure key decisions are grounded in rigorous analysis.

This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role with significant ownership. You will operate as the analytical lead for your area, bringing structure to highly ambiguous problems and ensuring decisions are grounded in rigorous analysis. The person best suited for this role will be comfortable operating without a playbook. You've worked in environments where the right metrics weren't obvious and had to be earned through stakeholder alignment and analytical judgment — not just inherited. You understand that partnerships are not one-size-fits-all, and you have the instincts to figure out what "good" looks like for each one. You're equally at home doing deep quantitative analysis and sitting in a BD conversation translating ambiguous business goals into measurable outcomes.

_Note: This role is focused on product and partnership analytics. It is not an ML engineering role — you will not be responsible for building or productionizing machine learning systems.

_Responsibilities:

• Define and own the measurement frameworks for distribution and syndication partnerships — identifying the right metrics for each deal type and building the infrastructure to track them reliably.
• Evaluate partnership performance end-to-end, from pre-deal sizing and goal-setting through ongoing measurement and post-mortem analysis.
• Conduct market landscape analysis to map the distribution ecosystem, identify coverage gaps and whitespace, and deliver prioritized opportunity assessments that inform BD targeting and partnership strategy.
• Support the Business Development team with data-driven analysis: sizing potential partners and modeling expected impact to frame the analytical case for pursuing or passing on deals.
• Influence product strategy and roadmap through data-driven storytelling, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, and Business Development.
• Conduct deep-dive analyses to identify growth opportunities and surface insights that wouldn't emerge from standard reporting.
• Apply advanced statistical methods (e.g., regression, cohort analysis, causal inference) to understand how distribution channels drive user behavior and long-term retention.
• Build dashboards and scalable data assets that enable self-service analytics for partnership and BD stakeholders.
• Partner with Data Engineering to build reliable, scalable datasets that serve as sources of truth for partnership data.
• Lead AI-augmented analytical workflows — leveraging tools like Gemini or Copilot - to automate routine queries, synthesize complex contracts, draft documentation, and accelerate SQL/Python script generation.
• Actively identify and implement AI-driven efficiencies in your daily tasks, replacing manual, repetitive workflows with automation or AI-assisted data procedures.
• Perform rigorous validation and governance checks on AI-assisted code and analysis outputs, serving as a validator to guarantee exceptional statistical integrity and accuracy.
• Provide guidance, strategic mentorship, and methodologies that raise the analytical bar for the broader cross-functional team.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in product analytics, business analytics, or data science with ownership of metrics and measurement frameworks at scale.
• Demonstrated experience supporting distribution, syndication, or strategic partnerships with analytics — including defining partnership-specific success metrics.
• Comfort operating without a playbook; proven success in environments where the right metrics weren't obvious and had to be established through stakeholder alignment and strong analytical judgment.
• Strong statistical foundation, including hypothesis testing, regression, and causal inference.
• Experience conducting market landscape or competitive analysis — synthesizing internal performance data with external signals to surface strategic opportunities for business or BD teams.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python or R.
• Experience with BI tools (e.g., Looker, Tableau).
• Experience partnering with Data Engineering to build reliable datasets and event instrumentation.
• Ability to operate independently and influence cross-functional stakeholders — including non-technical BD and business audiences — through clear, confident communication.
• Hands-on experience leveraging generative AI tools (such as Gemini, ChatGPT, or Claude) and AI-assisted coding assistants (such as GitHub Copilot) to optimize analytics workflows, troubleshoot code, and accelerate strategic research.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with consumer-facing or large-scale digital products (10M+ DAU), particularly in a distribution or growth context.
• Experience building analytical frameworks, processes, or entire measurement playbooks from scratch in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment.
• Advanced degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, etc.).
• Familiarity with the OEM, carrier, or browser distribution ecosystem.
• Familiarity with structured prompt engineering to manipulate unstructured datasets and extract strategic intelligence from commercial agreements.

The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above as well as adhering to Yahoo policies; exercising sound judgment; working effectively, safely and inclusively with others; exhibiting trustworthiness and meeting expectations; and safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.

At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, just ask the recruiter!

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.

The compensation for this position ranges from $102,000.00 - $212,500.00/yr and will vary depending on factors such as your location, skills and experience.The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of discretionary annual bonus or commissions. Our comprehensive benefits include healthcare, a great 401k, backup childcare, education stipends and much (much) more.

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