Principal, Insights & Innovation

Samba•San Francisco, CA

5d•Remote

About The Position

Samba is a media intelligence company that provides real-time, large-scale data on what the world is watching, reading, and thinking across all screens. The Principal, Insights & Innovation role is responsible for developing new, cutting-edge solutions and thought leadership in media intelligence. This role leverages deep data and statistical expertise, combined with business acumen and industry knowledge, to create solutions spanning behavioral and contextual targeting, media planning and insights, measurement, activation, and optimization. These solutions are built on Samba's data, informed by customer discovery, industry trends, and competitive analysis, and take the form of personalized, interactive applications that incorporate AI and agentic workflows. The role operates within the Insights & Innovation team, serving both internal teams (Sales, Product, Engineering, and Marketing) and external customers, with a focus on future market direction.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (analytics, statistics, data science, computer science, or mathematics) or equivalent practical experience.
4 to 6 years in data science, analytics, computer science or applied research, ideally including experience building and shipping data-driven applications and presenting results to stakeholders or customers.
Media, advertising, or measurement experience (e.g., cross-channel but with a focus on CTV, addressable audiences, contextual targeting, attribution, and causal inference).
Python proficiency.
SQL proficiency.
Expertise in descriptive, inferential, and predictive statistics with sound model selection, tuning, and best practices.
Experience with BI and data-visualization tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI, or similar).
Experience building interactive applications with JavaScript and React.
Curiosity paired with a strong bias to build.
Ownership and independence within a self-directed function.
Customer obsession.
A forward-looking mindset that prioritizes where the industry is going over where it is today.
Cross-functional collaboration skills.
Comfort operating amid ambiguity and rapid iteration.
Exceptional storytelling and presentation skills, able to distill complex statistical work into simple, compelling narratives for non-technical audiences.
Consultative and skilled at customer discovery.
Credible and poised with customers and sellers.
Ability to influence without authority while evangelizing new ideas internally.

Nice To Haves

An advanced degree is a plus.
Developing agents and agentic workflows.
Data embeddings and vector databases.
Applications built on multimodal models.

Responsibilities

Design and build new media intelligence solutions using internal Samba data assets and external data sourced through licensing and partnerships.
Partner with Samba’s sales team to conduct customer discovery, ideation, and solutions development, translating business needs into well-scoped analytic and product concepts.
Monitor industry trends and the competitive landscape to identify market direction and opportunities for Samba.
Select and apply appropriate statistical methods (descriptive, inferential, predictive) with rigor in model selection, tuning, and performance.
Develop personalized, interactive client deliverables (e.g., browser-based dashboards using JavaScript and React).
Incorporate AI and agentic workflows into solutions, including data embeddings, vector databases, and multimodal models.
Support thought leadership and conduct partnership-based research to strengthen Samba's industry position.
Partner with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Marketing to pitch solutions for adoption into the product roadmap.
Prototype quickly, validate with customers, and prepare proven solutions for templating and scaling.
Apply Samba methodology to billions of raw data signals to help customers make data-driven media decisions.