Associate Principal Data Scientist (Remote)

Activision Blizzard • San Francisco, CA

69d • Remote

About The Position

We are seeking an Associate Principal Data Scientist—a highly experienced and technically deep individual contributor who leads through influence, owns high-impact initiatives, and drives scientific excellence across experimentation and modeling. (This position is open to remote work.)

Requirements

• Master’s degree or PhD in a quantitative field (e.g., Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Operations Research).
• 14+ years of industry experience (or equivalent post-graduate experience) in data science, experimentation, statistical modeling, and machine learning, including work with large-scale systems.
• Proficient in Python and SQL; familiarity with big data tools (e.g., Spark, Hive) and cloud computing platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS).
• Strong systems thinking—able to zoom out and define strategy while also diving deep into code and analysis.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with demonstrated experience partnering across Product, Engineering and Business teams.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring, influencing, and elevating the technical bar across a data science organization.
• Relevant experience with one or more advertising solutions (i.e. Real-Time Bidding, Ad Exchange, etc.)

Nice To Haves

• Prior work with mobile gaming studios or player behavior modeling.
• Experience in developing or maintaining experimentation platforms.
• Familiarity with modern data orchestration and versioning (e.g., Airflow, dbt, MLflow).

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and execution of large-scale data science initiatives, shaping the roadmap for experimentation and modeling across teams.
• Apply advanced statistical, optimization, and machine learning techniques (e.g., time-series, regression/classification, recommendation engines, reinforcement learning, and genAI) to drive system understanding and develop data-powered solutions across the organization.
• Own design and evaluation of experimentation for optimization systems.
• Provide technical direction, mentor senior data scientists, and set high standards for scientific rigor, communication, and reproducibility.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Game Studios to frame ambiguous problems, scope solutions, and influence strategy.
• Champion innovation by evaluating new methodologies and tools, and by raising the bar for scalable, interpretable, and actionable data science.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance
• 401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching
• Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave
• Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others
• If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees