Data Scientist

Who we are

HopSkipDrive’s mission is to create opportunity for all through mobility. Our innovative, supplemental school transportation solutions are used by over 600 school districts, charter schools, nonprofits, government agencies, as well as busy families to safely and reliably get kids where they need to go.

Student transportation is the largest mass transit system in the U.S. The way kids get to and from school has a direct impact on our kids, families, schools and communities. While school districts spend $28 billion annually on transportation, only 30% of kids get to school on a bus. The current system can no longer meet all the transportation needs of our districts, schools and families — and its shortcomings are causing inequities in educational access that are affecting the welfare of millions of kids each day.

HopSkipDrive is taking a different approach to arranging safe, reliable school transportation that meets needs that aren’t being addressed by the current system, helping to fill gaps and supplement the student transportation options available. We create personalized transportation solutions for the one to the many, and everything in between.

We’re a company with heart

Our partnerships with school districts, child welfare agencies and nonprofits ensure equitable educational access for the most vulnerable populations, including youth in foster care, children experiencing homelessness and students with disabilities. 

We understand that the difference between struggle and success can sometimes be as simple as the ability to show up, which is why we’re on a mission to use innovative technology — coupled with operational expertise and new ways of thinking — to help kids reach their full potential by providing a safe, dependable way to get them where they are going.

We’re an awesome place to work

Our company culture has been well-recognized — HopSkipDrive has been named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list, as well as Best Places to Work lists from Built In LA, Comparably, Inc., and the Los Angeles Business Journal. Comparably also named us a Best Company for Professional Development, as well as to its Best CEO and Best CEOs for Women lists.

We’re growing rapidly

Founded by three moms as a solution to their own transportation challenges, we now operate across over 13 states across the country. We continue to expand at a rapid pace, making the Inc. 5000 list four times, as well as the Deloitte 500 Fast-Growing Technology list. HopSkipDrive has raised $100M in funding to date.

Your role: 

You will leverage organizational data to generate meaningful insights that improve the experiences of our users, while also being able to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of core business functions. One key requirement will be the specification, testing, validation, and maintenance of predictive and prescriptive models in both the product and the organizational spaces. 

The ideal candidate will be adept at diving deeply into business problems, understanding where opportunities exist for advanced analytics, and injecting fully-scoped and tested models into our product space and business. Candidates should have a bottomless curiosity, a keen desire to solve real problems, ability to translate complex concepts to non-technical stakeholders, and willingness to master unfamiliar domains and methods. You think like a business owner. You are excited to jump in and help your teammates, and you’re always thinking of ways to constructively challenge the status quo and improve the business. You are an A+ player who is inspired by the mission we are pursuing and by the opportunity to define a new category in an incredibly fast-moving market. You are a creative problem solver, who strives for excellence, but knows how to move from explore to exploit. You are excited to bring your best everyday, to learn from those around you and to push hard while contributing to our powerful vision of positively impacting kids’ lives everyday.

At HopSkipDrive, we know that to tackle our toughest challenges, we need different approaches, unique perspectives, and new ways of thinking.  We are building a team of creative problem-solvers from many different backgrounds.

What you’ll do: 

• Combine DS strategies, programming expertise, and theoretical understanding of techniques to deliver advanced ML solutions for problem solving across the enterprise.
• Scope, explore, specify, test, and deploy, and observe accurate and stable models into production environments.  
• Utilize modern, open-source data scientific workflows (SQL, R/Python, Github) to create highly accurate or explainable predictive/prescriptive models.
• Own models in production and re-train when necessary
• Demonstrate a product mindset to deliver portable components that can be deployed into existing products OR converted into stand-alone data products
• Partner closely with BI, Engineering, Product Management, DevOps, and business stakeholders to create business-aligned, stable workflows.
• Communicate results and model specifications to appropriate stakeholders.
• Mentor, train, and assist aspiring data science professionals

Skills and Experience:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying production quality predictive and/or prescriptive models
• Strong data acquisition skills using SQL in modern technical stacks (PostGres, AWS, Snowflake)
• 5+ years working with open source data science toolkits including Python (numpy, pandas, scikit, PySpark) or R (Tidyverse/Tidymodels). Strong preference for candidates who can capably translate between Python and R. 
• 2+ years experience in deploying models to production environments through APIs, or batch processes
• 3+ years experience in at least TWO of the following DS methods 
• Supervised and Unsupervised ML (regression, classification, etc.)
• Econometric modeling (e.g.  time-to-event/survival analysis)
• Reinforcement learning (e.g multiarm bandits for price or intervention optimization)
• Operations research (e.g. combinatorial optimization/ traveling salesman, linear programming)
• Demonstrated experience with reproducible data science environments including creation of virtual environments, library management, and version control using Git/Github
• Demonstrated experience writing up results using literate programming workflows (Quarto preferred).

Nice to have experience: 

• Masters or PhD in Data Science, Operations Research, Applied Math, Machine Learning, Computer Science, AI, Statistics, Engineering, or similar
• Experience with back end model deployment and monitoring (MLOPS) using cloud ecosystems (Google, AWS, Snowflake).
• Experience with “big data” solutions requiring cloud-infrastructure or distributed compute
• Experience building in, and potentially standing up, cloud-based data science environments (Posit Workbench, DataBricks, Sagemaker)
• Experience doing data science work in the transportation, logistics, or delivery spaces
• Experience with Transformers for analyzing large sequences of data

** This role will be fully remote in one of the following states AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, IL, IN, KS, MD, MI, MO, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OK, OR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI**

What you will get

We want you to be an owner in our company and share in executing our vision, so every full-time employee has equity. In addition, we offer competitive market comp, flexible vacation, FSA, medical, dental and vision, 401(k), and an opportunity to work for a uniquely positioned, VC-backed company in a hugely attractive space with significant upside potential. HopSkipDrive is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The base salary range for this role is $140,000 to $155,000. Final compensation for this role will be determined by several factors such as a candidate’s relevant work experience, skill set and specific work location. The total compensation package for this role also includes equity stock options.

Equal Opportunity Employer

HopSkipDrive is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected class. HopSkipDrive is also proud to operate as a drug-free workplace.