Lead Data Scientist (Growth & Performance Marketing)

Philo is a small, ambitious startup building the future of television. Our product lets you watch your favorite shows on all the devices you care about, with intelligent search, insightful discovery, and effortless sharing — in short, we are building the TV watching experience that we’ve always wanted for ourselves.

We’re a company that puts people first — both our customers and the people on our team. At Philo, our philosophy is to empower our colleagues to do their best work and have a big impact on the product while supporting each other in a collaborative environment. We value pragmatism, pride in our work, and passion. We believe in having transparency and openness across all parts of the company.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion as we grow the Philo team and shape the future of TV. Promoting inclusion and diversity is a core part of our values, and we believe that a diverse set of voices and perspectives on our team enables us to build the best product for our customers.

Philo is headquartered in San Francisco, with additional offices in New York and Cambridge, MA. Our leadership team includes one of the founders of Facebook as well as alums of Meraki and HBO. Philo is backed by NEA and industry partners including HBO, Discovery, AMC, A&E, and Viacom.

Company and Culture

We’re a small team that puts our product experience first. We foster a flexible work environment that is supportive but allows for autonomy so that everyone on the team can help us build towards our vision. Philo engineers and data scientists own what they build from start to finish. We ship to production multiple times per day and keep unnecessary processes to a minimum so we can maintain our pace of rapid development. We value pragmatism, having pride in our work, and deep transparency at all levels.

The Role

Philo is looking for a Lead Data Scientist (Growth & Performance Marketing) to join our team and help elevate our marketing analytics and attribution practice. This role will provide senior leadership in building sophisticated marketing measurement systems, establishing methodological rigor for growth analytics, and coaching our data science team to deliver high-impact solutions that optimize customer acquisition and lifetime value. You have strong opinions about what world-class marketing attribution looks like and are passionate about driving efficient growth. You will work across marketing, finance, and product teams and have a keen sense of how to connect marketing investments to business outcomes and customer value.

Responsibilities:

• Set the roadmap and model best practices for marketing and growth sciences at Philo
• Lead the development of unified marketing measurement approaches combining Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), Multi-touch Attribution (MTA), and incrementality testing
• Partner with marketing leadership and C-Suite to optimize marketing spend allocation and Return on Ad Spend (RoAS)
• Establish and evangelize methodological standards for marketing measurement and causal inference
• Build frameworks for Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) modeling and customer acquisition cost (CAC) optimization
• Coach and mentor data scientists on advanced attribution techniques and marketing analytics
• Develop and maintain marketing attribution models using tools like Robyn and custom solutions
• Lead geo-experimentation and matched market testing initiatives
• Build self-service dashboards and tools for marketing performance monitoring
• Collaborate with finance on budgeting and forecasting models
• Champion data-driven decision making in growth strategy and channel optimization
• Represent the data science team in marketing strategy and budget planning discussions

Key Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional experience in data science/analytics with demonstrated proficiency in Python, SQL, or R and statistical modeling
• 3+ years of experience leading marketing analytics or growth data science teams
• Deep expertise in marketing attribution methodologies (MMM, MTA, incrementality testing)
• Excitement to leverage the latest LLM tools to improve workflows and efficiency.
• Strong experience with Bayesian methods for hierarchical modeling and ridge regression
• Proven track record of building and deploying marketing measurement systems at scale
• Experience with customer lifetime value modeling and cohort-based forecasting
• Deep experience in building robust data models for marketing analytics
• Experience mentoring data scientists on marketing analytics best practices
• Excellent communication skills with ability to translate complex attribution insights to marketing teams
• Strong business acumen with ability to connect marketing metrics to financial outcomes

Nice-to-have:

• Experience in media/streaming industry with understanding of subscription business models
• Knowledge of time-series forecasting and predictive modeling for demand planning
• Experience with propensity modeling and customer segmentation
• Familiarity with privacy-preserving measurement techniques (differential privacy, data clean rooms)
• Background in econometric modeling and quasi-experimental methods
• Experience with survey design and analysis for brand lift and market research
• Knowledge of modern martech stack integration and CDP platforms

More about Philo

At Philo, we’re a company that puts people first—both our subscribers and our team. We empower our colleagues to do their best work while supporting one another in pursuing shared goals. We value pragmatism, pride in our work, and passion, with transparency and openness as fundamental parts of our culture.

We’re committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as we grow the Philo team and shape the future of TV. We believe that a diverse range of voices and perspectives enables us to innovate faster and create the best experiences for our subscribers. Philo is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We’re committed to supporting every candidate and employee. If you need an accommodation at any stage of the process, please email recruiting@philo.com and we’ll work with you to meet your needs.

Philo offers 70+ top-rated networks, including AMC, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, HISTORY, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, MTV, Nickelodeon, OWN, VH1, We TV, and more. It also includes all the groundbreaking originals and blockbuster movies available with AMC+ and access to HBO Max Basic With Ads and discovery+. Our service also includes 100+ free channels and premium add-ons like STARZ and MGM+.

Our extensive library boasts over 85,000 titles, and our unlimited DVR allows users to save their favorite shows and movies for up to a year, skipping ads for a seamless viewing experience. Stream on up to three devices simultaneously, whether on your phone, tablet, laptop, or TV using Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Samsung TV, Android TV, Vizio TV, or Chromecast.

Philo is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York and Cambridge, MA. Our leadership team includes a Facebook co-founder and alums from Meraki and HBO, backed by NEA and industry partners like Discovery, Viacom, AMC, and A&E.

Join us at Philo and be part of a team that's shaping the future of TV!

Projected Start Date: ASAP
Status: Full-time
Location: San Francisco, CA, Brooklyn, NY, Cambridge, MA, or fully remote within the U.S.
Compensation: Includes annual salary between $172K-$237K depending on experience and location, company stock options, and health benefits

We value a diverse and inclusive workplace and we welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, skills, and perspectives. Philo is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that everyone does their best work when they are supported by each other and the company, and we offer a generous set of benefits to make sure the Philo team is happy and healthy. Here is a sampling of the benefits we offer our team:

• Full health, dental and vision coverage for you and your family
• 401(k) plan with employer contributions (we match 100% of deferrals up to 3% of pay and 50% of the next 2% of pay)
• Flexible working hours
• Up to 20 weeks of fully paid parental leave
• Unlimited paid time off for vacation and sick leave
• $2,000 annual vacation bonus (we pay you to take a two week vacation)
• $5,250 annually for professional development and educational assistance
• $1,250 annual home office + TV stipend during first year of employment ($250 annually thereafter)
• $500/month ($6,000/year) bonus for employees who commit to working at least 3 days per week in our offices, plus generous commuter benefits ($315/month towards transit, rideshare, bike rental, or parking at our HQ office in San Francisco)
• Free Gympass subscription — an all-in-one corporate benefit that gives employees the largest selection of gyms, studios, classes, training and wellness apps
• Dog-friendly office
• And much more!

For California Residents: Philo’s CCPA Notice at Collection – Employees, Applicants, Owners, Directors, Officers and Contractors

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.