Data Scientist - $70.00 - $85.00 Per Hour

About the Role This opportunity is for a senior-level Data Scientist focused on AI-driven web games, player behavior, real-time data systems, and generative AI feedback loops. The role is responsible for shaping the data discipline from the ground up, defining the strategy for how gameplay, engagement, and distribution data are collected, analyzed, and used to improve both player experience and AI-powered creative systems. This is not a traditional reporting-focused analytics role. The position combines data science, machine learning, behavioral analytics, experimentation, and data platform strategy to support the development of interactive entertainment products and generative AI systems. What You’ll Do • Own, define, and guide the implementation of data collection strategy and governance across digital games, platforms, and player experiences. • Design and specify scalable, real-time data pipelines for ingesting, processing, and analyzing gameplay, engagement, telemetry, and distribution data. • Build models and define data platforms that turn raw player data into actionable insights for product, creative, and technical teams. • Develop data systems that support AI training, evaluation, refinement, and automated content improvement. • Design and own experimentation frameworks to measure player engagement, retention, narrative effectiveness, and overall product experience. • Partner with engineering, product, creative, and executive stakeholders to identify player behavior trends and guide strategic decisions. • Help define success metrics and identify the signals that explain what keeps players engaged and returning. • Set standards for data systems, tooling, infrastructure, code quality, and governance. • Mentor future team members as the data science function grows. Qualifications • 10+ years of experience in data science, analytics, and machine learning. • Demonstrated experience leading data science initiatives from concept through production. • 5+ years of experience in gaming, media, interactive entertainment, or a closely related digital product environment is strongly preferred. • Deep experience working with structured and unstructured data. • Experience designing event taxonomies and behavioral analytics frameworks for digital experiences, ideally from the ground up. • Expert-level hands-on experience with modern data architectures, including real-time streaming, data lakes, data warehouses, feature stores, and MLOps pipelines. • Experience with technologies such as Kafka, Kinesis, Snowflake, BigQuery, feature stores, and related modern data platforms. • Proven experience applying machine learning or AI techniques to production systems using real-world user data. • Experience with personalization, content recommendation, automated content evaluation, or similar AI-driven product systems. • Ability to own the full data lifecycle, from high-level architecture and strategy through implementation, iteration, and improvement. • Interest in games, player psychology, generative AI, and the intersection of data-driven systems with interactive entertainment. • Exceptional quantitative, analytical, and communication skills. • Ability to influence technical, product, creative, and executive stakeholders through clear data-backed storytelling. • Strong ownership mindset with the ability to define best practices, select tools, implement systems, and shape long-term data and AI strategy.