[Wattpad] Data Scientist

Wattpad’s vision is to entertain and connect the world through webnovel stories. Since 2006, we’ve been on a mission to use the power of community and technology to unleash the full potential of stories to the world. Representing a tapestry of cultures and languages, people around the world come to Wattpad every month to share and discover stories they can’t find anywhere else. Come build the future of entertainment and storytelling with our global team, and write your next chapter with us!
Wattpad is part of the WEBTOON family of brands, the largest storytelling platform in the world that enables creators and users to discover, create, and share stories. With over 24 million creators and ~170 million active users per month, we are truly empowering creation by anyone, for everyone. To read more about our family of Brands, check out our website here. 
The Data Products & Analytics (DPA) team focuses on supporting and improving Wattpad’s Search, Recommendation and Analytics systems. We are a cross functional team of data scientists, analysts and engineers with the vision to connect millions of readers to the right story at the right time. If you have a passion for building discovery systems at massive scale, come join us to build the next iteration of our ML engines!

What you’ll be doing:

• Bring knowledge of analysis and applied machine learning to the challenges of product creation, development, maintenance and improvement to Wattpad systems (e.g. recommendations, search) with an appreciation for the behaviours of Wattpad users
• Follow and maintain best practices for analysis, experimentation and machine learning solution development and communicate those to stakeholders and partners to help create business value and impact
• Prove concepts, prototype and build iteratively in areas such as but not limited to: user analysis and metrics, dashboards, feature pipelines, recommendation, search and ranking solutions to achieve impact while developing comprehensive knowledge of business objectives, data structures, business impact, processes, advocating for changes where needed to improve the product  
• Work cross functionally to build and communicate key findings, POCs, prototypes, solutions and collaboration closely with product managers, engineers and designers to help build news experience on Wattpad

What we're looking for:

• A passion for applying analytics and machine learning to business problems
• Motivation and excitement to deal with ambiguous problems and challenges
• 3+ years experience in a Data Scientist role with proven results in delivering high impact support and/or products with quantitative methods and applied machine learning through the lifecycle of development, implementation and evaluation
• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in relevant field or equivalent experience 
• A systematic approach to problem solving and project organization
• Clear communication about problem requirements, benefits and challenges of approaches with stakeholders and team members 
• A team player who can collaborate and partner with other teams to achieve results
• Comfort working with complex, high dimensional data in SQL, Python and Pyspark
• Comfort with applied machine learning frameworks: scikit-learn, PyTorch, or Tensorflow
• Proven experience in a software engineering environment developing and deploying data pipelines, dashboards and/or solutions.

What we offer:

• Career development; we believe in mentorship and investing in your learning, supporting you to achieve your goals
• Top industry health benefits, including vision and dental 
• Your own health/wellness account to spend each year
• RRSP Contributions (Canada), 401K Contributions (USA)
• Generous vacation and Maternity/Parental leave top-up program
• Corporate discount for gym memberships for you and your family
• Work from almost anywhere in the world for part of the year
• Winter break shutdown and a whole lot more!

Wattpad is conducting all interviews in a distributed manner using applicable third party software where needed and using visual interface tools such as Google Meet and Zoom.
About Wattpad
Who are we? Entrepreneurs and Do-ers. Our vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories, and our mission is to use the power of community and technology to unleash the full potential of stories to the world.What does that mean? We are visionaries, community builders, passionate problem solvers, storytellers, coffee snobs (tea drinkers, too!), curious by nature, and culturally diverse.What are we obsessed with? Our users. Solving complex problems and maximizing flow. Learning constantly. Building the next great storytelling product. Finding the greatest stories ever told. Dogs (and cats), coffee, and good snacks.How do we work? Autonomously, collaboratively, respectfully. Balancing with work, family, and play...and all while having a great time.
Wattpad is a remote friendly company and encourages remote candidates to apply as long as they are located and authorized to work in either the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) as a precondition of employment. We are not able to sponsor applicants for work permits.
If you happen to live near the areas of either Toronto, Ontario or Halifax, Nova Scotia, you may also have the opportunity to work from our beautiful offices - 1 located in Downtown Toronto and the other in Halifax.
Culture and Diversity
Wattpad is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate. Period. 
Wattpad welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. We have taken a leadership position on creating a culture and an organization that truly values diversity. We are committed to fostering a global team that reflects the diversity of the Wattpad community. At Wattpad, we believe cultural fit doesn’t mean culturally identical, and diversity of thought helps us to challenge one another to think big and think differently. We consider employment applicants without regard to age, race, colour, national origin, citizenship, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, disability status or any other protected status.  
If you have any special needs or accessibility requirements, please let us know. We will do our utmost to accommodate, in accordance with applicable local legislation.
Don’t meet all the requirements? Studies show women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs if they do not meet all the qualifications. Therefore, in an effort to build a more diverse workplace, we encourage you to apply anyways. You might actually be the right person or you may be a good fit for a number of other openings we currently have.