Principal Data Scientist

Yoodli AI Roleplays•Seattle, WA

1d•$200,000 - $220,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Yoodli is hiring a principal-level, high-autonomy data scientist to own the data function end to end, including its infrastructure, standards, and analytical judgment. The role will establish how the company measures whether learners improve through a product whose core output is generated by LLMs, and will help leadership and product teams make evidence-based decisions. The work also supports customers in quantifying the impact of Yoodli within their organizations. The position will build the data foundation and experimentation program, develop models that turn communication signals into product value, and collaborate with product, design, engineering, customers, and executives. The role starts without a team, but may grow into building one. It is hybrid and requires being based in the Greater Seattle Area, with on-site work at the Seattle office on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in data science, product analytics, or a closely related field, including experience as the most senior data person on a product or business line.
Deep expertise in SQL and Python, with the ability to ship production-grade analytical code.
A track record of running an experimentation program, including power analysis, sequential testing, guardrail metrics, and the discipline to call a result null.
Experience evaluating LLM or other generative systems, including building evaluation sets, designing rubrics, and measuring quality without clean ground truth.
Fluency with modern data stacks such as dbt, Snowflake, and BigQuery, and BI tools such as Looker, Mode, Hex, or similar.
Demonstrated influence on product strategy at the executive level, including an example of a decision changed because of analysis.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to clearly explain and defend analytical recommendations.
Ability to work on-site at the Seattle office on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday; must be based in the Greater Seattle Area.

Nice To Haves

Experience with speech analytics, NLP, or conversational AI.
Experience with embedded or customer-facing analytics.
Early-stage startup experience.

Responsibilities

Own the platform measurement strategy and define metrics for learner improvement.
Design and run the experimentation program, including A/B tests, holdouts, and rigorous LLM evaluation; establish standards for other teams.
Build data pipelines, a semantic layer, dashboards, and models for internal decisions and customer-facing analytics.
Partner with product, design, and engineering to turn ambiguous questions into analyses that inform what the company ships.
Work with customers’ BI and enablement teams to help them communicate Yoodli’s impact within their organizations.
Build models for scoring, skill progression, benchmarking, and churn or expansion prediction.
Translate analyses into clear recommendations for executives and the board, and defend those recommendations.
Set the technical bar for data, review analyses, mentor engineers and product managers on experiment design, and lay the groundwork for a future team.