Data Scientist, The Athletic

$125-135k

Salary based on US rates, other locations may vary

SQL

Python

Junior and Mid level

Remote from Canada, US

Subscription-based sports content publisher

Be an early applicant

Subscription-based sports content publisher

501-1000 employees

B2CPublishingContentSports

Be an early applicant

$125-135k

Salary based on US rates, other locations may vary

SQL

Python

Junior and Mid level

Remote from Canada, US

501-1000 employees

B2CPublishingContentSports

Company mission

To produce smarter coverage for die-hard fans and redefine the way fans get access to sports content by flipping the normal model for sports journalism.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

2-4 years of experience as a data scientist or data analyst with a proven ability to apply scientific methods to solve real-world problems on web scale data
Strong working knowledge of a scripting language like R or Python and how to use it to train machine learning models and put them into production
A solid understanding of SQL with an ability to efficiently pull and write to our data warehouses
An understanding of subscription media and recommendation engines, with the ability to turn it into insights and optimizations
Knowledge of statistical principles and how they apply to predictive modeling
Strong verbal and written communication skills with ability to build cross-functional relationships
Can explain sophisticated concepts to diverse audiences and craft compelling stories with data
The Athletic Media Company is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply

What the job involves

We are looking for a data scientist who will bring a deep understanding of our sportswriting, our in-game experience, and the way our subscribers use The Athletic to help us make our best-in-class product even better
In this role, you will work closely with our data, product, growth, and engineering teams to develop advanced machine learning models
These models will help us understand our business, optimize and automate our workflows, and have our product make smarter recommendations. As a member of our small data science team, your work will have a significant impact at The Athletic
Design, build, and implement mathematical models to drive key long-term product goals, like training a model that predicts which of our free users are most likely to subscribe, or recommending the right articles to the right users at the right time
Lead projects with hands-on analysis and modeling, drawing from multiple analytical methods to choose the right tool and right level of complexity appropriate for the job
Use quantitative analysis to deeply understand what our users are saying, and to develop recommendations based on that analysis
Design and develop data science pipelines in production
Guide complex experiments
Cultivate an outstanding data science environment

Our take

The Athletic provides authentic, in-depth coverage written by journalists who know the teams they write about inside out. Its model bucks the trend of traditional sports journalism outfits by asking for a subscription rather than relying on ad-revenue.

Despite initial doubts that users would be willing to pay for sports journalistic content, The Athletic has found significant success and was acquired by the New York Times in 2022. Despite it operating at a loss directly after the takeover, it was clear that the New York Times perceived this as a long-term investment.

In 2025, it was reported that The Athletic was now profitable, which aligns well with its parent's prediction of profitability within 4 years. This has been aided by accelerated customer growth alongside the rising trend of subscription-based sports news.

Kirsty

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Top investors

20% female employees

8% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (3.9)

Trustpilot (1.1)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)

Jan 2020

$50m

SERIES D

May 2019

$21.8m

SERIES C

Total funding: $139.7m

Company benefits

Paid Time Off
Paid Sick Leave
Paid Parental Leave
401 (k)
Short & Long Term Disability
Free Subscription
Competitive Health Care
HSA & FSA
Commuter Benefits

Company HQ

Financial District, San Francisco, CA

Leadership

Adam Hansmann

(President & Co-Founder)

Previously a McKinsey Business Analyst and then Associate at Calera Capital.

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