Data Scientist - Search

Nextdoor

11d•$175,000 - $234,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As Data Scientists at Nextdoor, you will have the opportunity to influence strategic decisions with product analytics, drive better experimentation and build online and offline ML solutions. We use a semi-embedded team structure, with data team members interfacing directly with product and engineering stakeholders. The Data Science group is made up of people from a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives, trained in fields as wide-ranging as economics, psychology, geography, physics, statistics, and operations research. We are the mathematical decision scientists for the product development organization and play a proactive and collaborative role in building and improving the product. At Nextdoor, we operate in an AI-first environment and expect every team member to actively use AI tools as part of their workflow. We aren't looking for prompt engineers; we’re looking for people who use tools like Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Glean to challenge their own thinking and take full ownership of AI-assisted outputs. We also offer a warm and inclusive work environment that embraces a hybrid employment model, blending an in office presence and work from home experience for our valued employees. The hiring team will go over these expectations with you if you are being considered for a role near one of our offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and London.

Requirements

5+ years of relevant Data Science experience
Direct experience working on a Search, recommendations, or information retrieval product — familiarity with the core problems (query understanding, retrieval, ranking, relevance evaluation) and the metrics used to measure them
Innate curiosity around finding meaningful insights that inform how we think about and develop our product and business strategies
Working knowledge of ML models and — more importantly — the judgment to apply them to real business problems and to devise the right metrics for evaluating algorithms and ranking systems
Strong working knowledge of experimentation, including designing and analyzing complex product A/B testing results, with fluency in handling interaction effects and long-term metric movement
Expert knowledge of SQL and Python, including common scientific computing packages and data science tools such as numpy, pandas, and scikit-learn
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to synthesize, simplify, and explain complex problems to different types of audiences, including executives, and compile compelling narratives

Nice To Haves

Experience working with ranking algorithms for unstructured content
Experience designing, deploying, or monitoring ML production models
Basic understanding of how to build RAG systems

Responsibilities

Design and develop algorithms and models to optimize Search relevance, retrieval, and ranking — driving value for both neighbors and the businesses they discover
Experiment design: ensure we run experiments efficiently and accurately, including monitoring early feature development through post-release follow-ups
Develop and share key strategic insights through data analysis, including designing experiments and evaluating the performance and impact of data-driven content and ranking changes
Build scalable metrics and dashboards to track Search performance and inform decisions across query understanding, retrieval, ranking, and downstream engagement
Partner with cross-functional teams to support product development efforts (including product, design, engineering, marketing, and operations)
Care deeply about data quality and empower employees to leverage data to help them succeed in their careers and help Nextdoor grow