Director of Economics

About the Company:

World is a network of real humans, built on privacy-preserving proof-of-human technology, and powered by a globally inclusive financial network that enables the free flow of digital assets for all. It is built to connect, empower, and be owned by everyone.

About the team:

The Economics team is responsible for Worldcoin’s economic design and analysis. In our team, Economists, Computer Scientists and Statisticians work together to rapidly design, build, and field-test incentive mechanisms that scale to thousands of Operators and more than a billion participants of the Worldcoin network. We partner with other teams across the organization to advance our products (i.e., the World App and World ID) and improve our market operations. We have earned a reputation for our hands-on approach, responsiveness, technical expertise, precision, and impactful solutions.

About the Opportunity:

As the Director of Economics, you will lead and build out the Economics team. The team currently consists of one Economist and two Economics product managers, but is expected to grow in the next year. You will set the team’s priorities and hire new team members as needed. You will be responsible for analyzing, designing and building the economic mechanisms that power Worldcoin. Examples include user incentives that drive appreciation for and usage of the products, and auctions to allocate contracts to Operators in a fair and efficient manner. To this end, you will apply market design thinking to design the most appropriate mechanisms. Your decisions will be informed by insights from data, field experimentation, deep statistical analysis, expert advice, and a deep understanding of the environment where these mechanisms are deployed. You and your team will be a service provider for many other teams at Worldcoin (in particular Product, Market Operations, and the CEO Office) for economic insights and design. You will report to the Chief Economist/Chief Analytics Officer. Your work will directly impact Worldcoin’s incentive design and strategy and its worldwide resource allocation decisions. 

In this role, you will:

• Build out and lead a high-performing team of economists, statisticians, and economics product managers

• Foster a culture of high quality work and continuous improvement

• Lead in-depth statistical analyses (including causal inference) to derive insights that drive strategic decisions for individual departments (e.g., Product and Market Operations) and the whole company

• Advise other teams (e.g., Product, Market Operations, Marketing) on the optimal design of field experiments (in particular experimentation for World App and for Worldcoin’s field operations)

• Collaborate closely with the Data Science team

About You:

• PhD in economics, econometrics, operations research, or similar

• 5+ years of hands-on technical experience in an economics role as an IC

• 5+ years of management experience building and leading teams

• Extensive experience in statistics/econometrics (in particular causal inference)

• Experience with designing and deploying experiments

• Experience with predictive analytics

• Proven track record of applying concepts from market design, game theory, auction theory, or behavioral economics to solve real-world problems

• Programming experience in SQL, Python, or similar programming languages

• Skilled at managing cross-functional relationships and communicating with leadership across multiple teams

• Practically oriented and “getting-the-job-done” mindset

• Thriving in a fast-paced and continuously evolving environment