Data Scientist Soccer Analytics

Company Description

Our Red Bull Soccer entity is a dynamic, passionate, and entrepreneurial team within the Red Bull Group which feeds, drives, and supports our soccer clubs around the Globe with high expertise and creativity not only to be the best but also to be pioneers and exemplary in everything we do.

We are supporting the data teams of all Red Bull soccer clubs in order to infuse more context-enriched data into every relevant aspect of the soccer game and player development. Some of the areas in focus are diagnostics, performance, training, load management, player and team analysis, short term and long-term squad planning, medical, just to name a few.

The role will be an integral part to use machine learning/ data science to create new insights from our sports data in all areas. The objective is to develop and support data-infused workflows together with all entities to achieve both cross-entity objectives on a global scale and individual club objectives along their sports targets as part of Red Bull Soccer.

Job Description

Operational

You will work with external and internal sports data, especially with event and tracking data but also other performance-related data sources to create new machine learning based models and metrics which capture and leverage our Red Bull DNA in all areas of our sport.

By analysing historical data, we can also make informed decisions to maximise player potential and overall team performance. The Data Scientist’s work will help us to reveal underlying patterns and trends in sports performance that may not be apparent through traditional methods. These insights will lead to the development of innovative strategies and tactics which will give our teams a competitive advantage.

Strategic Objectives

Developing Player- (and team-based) KPIs to evaluate the execution of our Red Bull DNA

Best insights on Opponent and Post-Match Analysis

Best Insights on Player Evaluation and Player Development Pathway

Improve player and team performance through better training insights

Best Insights on global transfer market

Help automize processes

Qualifications

Role specific skills/Experience

> 5 years of experience working as a data scientist, ideally within a data science team, collaborating with subject matter experts, in an industry setting (professional sports environment preferred).

High level understanding of the technical/tactical aspects of the football game at both individual as well as team/game levels or willingness and ability to learn on the job.

High level understanding/background in sport science and/or coaching is beneficial.

Capability and experience to transfer complex playing principles through an iterative process – led by our football experts – into the world of data.

Very good knowledge of one of the programming languages: Python (preferred), R, Java, C#, C++, or Scala.

Experience developing and productionizing machine learning algorithms is a must.

Proven experience working with raw sports data, in particular event and player tracking data (from competition and/or training) and other sports science and human physiology data.

Practical experience in working with cloud computing environments (e.g. AWS (preferred), Azure, GCP, Databricks)

Beneficial but not a must: Experience developing dashboards (e.g. in Streamlit, R-Shiny, Tableau, PowerBI, etc.)

Big plus but not a must: data engineering / software development experience, including integration with CI/CD systems, Gitlab, GitHub (Actions), or Jenkins.

Interpersonal and personal impact skills

Passion for soccer.

Drive for results, solution orientation, process management, hands-on mentality - ability to work under pressure with multiple deadlines and stakeholders.

Priority setting, managing complexity, highly effective in dealing with resistance and set backs.

Very high level of self-direction, experienced in supporting and developing colleagues and extended team members.

Interpersonal savvy, team player, flexible, effective communication, strong listener.

A natural propensity to develop and grow the people and the organization around him/her.

Ability to work under pressure with multiple deadlines and stakeholders.

B.Sc. or comparable degree and/or education in the field of data science, computer science, information management, econometrics, mathematics, statistics, sports analytics or related fields with a strong focus on data science (M.Sc. and PhD is a plus)

Fluent in English, additional languages welcome (Knowledge of German is a plus)

Additional Information

Due to legal reasons we are obliged to disclose the minimum salary according to the collective agreement for this position. However, our attractive compensation package is based on market-oriented salaries and is therefore significantly above the stated minimum salary.

As an employer, we value diversity and support people in developing their potential and strengths, realizing their ideas and seizing opportunities. The job advertisement is aimed at all people equally, regardless of age, skin colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or origin.