Director, Data Science - DuckDuckGo

Who We Are

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs, all in one place.

Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!

Your Team and Role

Working on the Data Science Functional Team, you'll drive product and business impact by developing data scientists, setting clear expectations for them, providing hands-on mentorship, and removing blockers.

You will guide and advise multiple data science projects so that they stay on track and have timely delivery with maximum impact. These projects will involve statistical modeling, experiment design, and classifier implementation across our search engine, instant answers, AI, and revenue optimization. You'll collaborate cross-functionally to validate direction through data, build trust in organizational tactics and strategy by consulting on experiments, and become an expert in our core metrics like searches, installs, and revenue. You'll also drive improvement of the data pipeline. Because of our strong privacy policies, you'll need to think creatively and develop strategies for how we can surface more actionable insights in an evidence-first culture where quantitative rigor is the baseline, not the exception.

As a Director, Data Science, you'll help shape our all-in-one privacy solution and join our mission to show the world that protecting your privacy online can be simple.

About You

• 10+ years of experience in data science or ML engineering, with 4+ years leading teams, and a track record of setting multi-team roadmaps and adapting swiftly as priorities shift.
• You've driven organizational culture toward data-driven decision-making and can translate technical tradeoffs and risks clearly for executives and cross-functional stakeholders.
• You enjoy coaching experienced data scientists who are already highly skilled. You give direct, actionable feedback and you've built teams where people do the best work of their careers.
• You can deploy and iterate ML and NLP solutions in production at an expert level, with deep knowledge of when to reach for which tools—especially in constrained environments requiring fast responses and strict privacy standards.
• You write production-grade code in Python or a comparable high-level language and stay close to the technical work when it matters most.
• You have advanced SQL and query optimization skills, with familiarity in columnar databases like BigQuery, ClickHouse, Redshift, or Druid.
• You have strong LLM/AI experience including fine-tuning, LLM-as-judge evaluation, and AI-assisted development, and can design, implement, and analyze experiments across product surfaces using sparse or privacy-constrained data.
• Preferred: Experience at a consumer-facing tech company where data or analytics is core to the product strategy.

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation: $243,800 USD annually + stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.
• Health Benefits: Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to US-based team members.
• Perks & Support: Paid parental leave, office setup allowance, and co-working allowances.

Additional Expectations

• Video conferencing meetings on camera are required.
• Travel at least twice a year for an all-hands meetup and team retreat (each around 4–5 days).
• Flexible work arrangement with no core hours and an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.
• Background check required as a condition of joining.

Hiring Process & AI Disclosure

DuckDuckGo utilizes AI technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects. All final evaluations and hiring decisions are made by human hiring managers.