Senior Data Scientist, Thumbtack
Lifecycle
$171.7-261.8k
Salary dependent on location
Local services marketplace app
Be an early applicant
Local services marketplace app
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$171.7-261.8k
Salary dependent on location
1001+ employees
Company mission
Thumbtack's mission is to help homeowners care for their homes, all the way from minor retouching to fundamental remodelling projects.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Statistics, Math, Economics, Computer Science, or another STEM field
- 5+ years of experience in a highly analytical role, with strong proficiency in SQL and Python for working with large, complex datasets
- Cultivated a reputation as a trusted advisor to senior leadership and diverse cross-functional teams esp. managing non-technical stakeholders, leveraging insights to build consensus and influence strategy across product, marketing, and engineering, successfully influencing without direct authority
- Proven track record of independently leading long-term, ambiguous analytical initiatives with measurable business impact — not just executing defined analyses but scoping and shaping the work
- Deep expertise in experimental design, causal inference, and statistical methods — with the ability to navigate ambiguity in measurement contexts and communicate uncertainty clearly to non-technical stakeholders
- Experience building data products — dashboards, self-service tools, or reusable analytical frameworks — that scale beyond your immediate team
- Strong business acumen and ability to connect data findings to lifecycle strategy, making crisp prioritization recommendations under uncertainty
What the job involves
- The Data Science team empowers Thumbtack to use data to guide business decisions
- We collaborate with partners across the company to solve the most analytically challenging problems — everything from informing how we set prices across almost a thousand local services categories, to evaluating the impact of a new business model on company performance, to identifying early predictors of high-quality customers
- We are a tight-knit, intellectually curious team committed to improving Thumbtack and improving each other
- As a data scientist on the experience led growth team, you will partner with a world-class cross-functional team — lifecycle marketers, product managers, engineers, and applied scientists— to build the analytical foundation that powers Thumbtack’s full lifecycle strategy for both homeowners and pros
- This is a high-ownership role at the intersection of measurement, product analytics and applied science, where you will shape how Thumbtack thinks about engagement across the entire customer and pro journey
- You will be embedded in the Lifecycle Center of Excellence (COE), which is expanding its mandate from homeowner lifecycle to include pro lifecycle
- The team’s priorities span personalized contextual communications, in-app lifecycle experiences, and the foundational data infrastructure and tooling needed to deliver these at scale — including end-to-end funnel reporting, self-serve analytics tooling, and measurement frameworks that cover the full lifecycle
- You will use your technical leadership to identify opportunities across both homeowner and pro lifecycle, develop a unified view of engagement on the Thumbtack platform, and partner with data engineering to build the data infrastructure that enables the team to move faster
- You will be leading long-term initiatives with significant ambiguity, exercising independent judgment, and influencing senior cross-functional partners with the implications of your work
- Build the Lifecycle measurement framework — define lifecycle health metrics for both homeowner and pro, design experiments with appropriate rigor, and navigate attribution and contamination challenges in ambiguous measurement contexts
- Build relationships with cross-functional teams across pro and homeowner lifecycle. Understand strategic challenges and contextualize them to use data to unlock new growth levers and inform product roadmap
- Synthesize evidence across data sources to produce insights that shift senior leaders’ mental models — going beyond what happened to explain why and what to do next across the full pro and customer lifecycle; provide analytical rigor for the evolution toward intelligent, customer-centric decisioning and personalization
- Serve as the tech lead for the Lifecycle — influence senior cross-functional partners, drive pillar-level alignment through insights and partnership. Be opinionated about strategic decisions and trade-offs based on your deep domain knowledge
- Continue to evolve workflow automation and self-serve. Discovering new ideas, implementing POCs and coaching fellow DS team members
Our take
ThumbTack is a local services marketplace app that pairs customers with skilled professionals. Instead of simply searching for a professional, users provide ThumbTack with details of the job they need completing and the professionals then pitch their services to the potential customer using credits. ThumbTack makes its money by charging the professional for these credits.
It positions itself as something a little different in a saturated local services space that is dominated by companies like Angie’s List, TaskRabbit, Yelp, eBay, and Amazon. It also focuses on a broad range of professionals, from traditional home services like electricians and painters to photographers, personal trainers, and birthday party magicians.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a boost in business for ThumbTack as more people stayed at home and made changes to their properties, increasing the demand for home professionals. In fact, after 2019, the company doubled in value to $3.2 billion with its 2021 raise. Since its 2024 funding round, its updated app has 30 new features, and the company is partnering with the likes of trade-powering platform and Unicorn ServiceTitan, indicating Thumbtack's sustained sway in the market.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-5% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Jun 2021
$275m
LATE VC
Jul 2019
$150m
SERIES F
Total funding: $699.4m
Company benefits
- Parental leave
- Health insurance
- Community matters | Sure, our ways of connecting have changed. But we haven’t missed a beat, from virtual concerts to “TTversary” celebrations to weekly catch-ups
- Always be improving | We bring out the best in our colleagues — and our product — by pushing each beyond what we believe we’re capable of. We give honest feedback, even when it’s hard
- Wellness is a way of life | We promote balance with generous PTO and company-wide holidays — and find our centers every Wellness Wednesday with yoga featuring a Thumbtack pro
- A worthy mission | In a world where tech is often seen as eroding good jobs, we’re helping small business owners thrive. Our product makes entrepreneurship accessible to everyone
- Driven by our values | Our values are the compass by which we make all our decisions. Each one matters: Lead with why, Make it count, Own it, Choose teamwork, and Say what you mean
- Plus, amazing benefits | All the benefits you’d expect, plus a few more: generous parental and fertility benefits, $1800 for Thumbtack services per year and a $1200 remote work stipend
- Virtual-first working model coupled with quarterly in-person events and Camp Thumbtack
- 20+ company-wide holidays including two week-long shutdowns
- Libraries (collaborative workspaces) in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Toronto, and Manila
- Cell phone and WiFi reimbursements
- Subscriptions and Employee Assistance Program for mental health and well-being
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Marco Zappacosta
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied at Columbia University, Marco co-founded Thumbtack in August 2008. He has served as CEO since January 2009.
Jonathan Swanson
(Co-Founder & Chairman)Jonathan started his career creating financial market reports for the White House before co-founding Thumbtack in 2008. Currently Founder at Powerset and Athena.
Share this job
View 29 more jobs at Thumbtack