Candidates can work from our New York or San Francisco offices as they reopen, or as a permanently remote employee in the United States.

DonorsChoose is a technology-based non-profit that is serious about data. We are seeking a Director of Data Science & Analytics who is eager to play both a key technical and leadership role on a results-oriented, four-person team that delivers critical work for stakeholders across the organization. In this player-coach capacity, a typical week may involve prioritizing data projects with leaders from departments across our org, conducting an equity analysis of teacher funding, assisting our Analytics Engineer with a custom data transformation script, collaborating with Engineering to improve data freshness, and guiding a direct report on their professional development.

The Director of Data Science & Analytics will report directly to our CTO, and will manage an Analytics Engineer, a Data Scientist, and a Business Intelligence Analyst. Together with our Engineering team, they’ll manage our data stack, at the center of which sits a Redshift-based warehouse that houses transactional, event, customer service, and CRM data. We use Fivetran to ingest data and dbt to transform it. Through Looker, our staff accesses this data, which represents over 2 million classroom requests from over 600,000 teachers, funded by 5 million donors.

The ideal candidate is seeking an organization whose mission aligns with their values, where data is democratized and used for good, and where they’ll be challenged and supported in their growth. 

About DonorsChoose

DonorsChoose engages the public in public schools by giving people a simple, accountable, and personal way to address educational inequity. In this clip, board member Stephen Colbert tells our story.

To date, teachers at 83% of all the public schools in America have posted classroom project requests on our site. Projects range from paper and markers for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital. More than 5 million “community philanthropists” have supported such projects, channeling books, field trips, technology, and other resources to more than 40 million students nationwide. In all, we’ve generated $1 billion for learning experiences designed by our country’s most dedicated public school teachers.

GOOD Magazine highlighted us as one of 30 Places We Want to Work, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Through its dedicated team and culture, DonorsChoose earned recognition as the #1 "Best Nonprofit to Work For" by the Nonprofit Times.

About the Team

This role leads the Data Science & Analytics Team in our Product, Engineering & Data group. The Data team advances DonorsChoose’s data-driven philosophy and equity focus using an analytics-centric data warehouse that holds the single source of truth for all areas of our operation. With this structured data, we use business analytics and data science to understand user behavior, build machine learning products, and inform business strategy across Marketing, Fulfillment, Operations, and Product.

About the Role

Responsibilities:

• Manage three direct reports: an Analytics Engineer, a Data Scientist, and a Business Intelligence Analyst, helping them deliver excellent work by providing advice and technical guidance
• Work collaboratively with teams across the organization to define our highest priority business needs and identify data analytics solutions
• Own data analytics strategy and vision, overseeing and prioritizing major initiatives around data modeling, engineering, analysis, and machine learning
• Get hands-on, performing statistical analyses on large sets of data to extract actionable insights that will help drive business decisions across our marketing, operations, and product teams
• Drive the organization's data literacy and grow fellow leaders' data savvy, with an emphasis on racial equity analyses and strategy
• Partner with Engineering to keep our data secure, adapt our data infrastructure to meet the growing needs of the organization, and build data-powered features for our teachers, donors, and colleagues
• Increase awareness of our work by engaging the “Data for Good” community and external researchers

Our ideal candidate:

• Has experience working hands-on with datasets to solve business problems, but also enjoys planning strategically for the business
• Is passionate about rigorous use of data as a tool for racial justice and educational equity
• Relishes distilling open-ended challenges into clear and tractable ones
• Has managed people, and is excited to help three direct reports to reach their full potential
• Guides complex, cross-team projects with a clear vision and fosters purposeful, collaborative relationships
• Possesses strong SQL and data transformation skills
• Is interested in machine learning model development and data science techniques
• Operates with a bias for impact and action, and a drive to deliver results for the teachers and students we serve
• Has experience with (but not required):
  • Modern business intelligence and reporting platforms, e.g. Looker
  • Amazon Web Services data infrastructure, e.g. Redshift, S3, and Lambda
  • Web analytics and event data
  • Development and deployment of machine learning products

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation for this role is competitive with equivalent technical roles at other nonprofits of our size. In addition, we offer full-time staff 25 paid vacation days per year and 11 paid holidays, a rich employer-paid individual and family health plan, annual professional development stipend, and casual and flexible work environment. To learn more about what it is like to work for DonorsChoose, visit our careers page. 

In compliance with the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, candidates from Colorado may inquire about the salary range for this role by completing this form. A member of our Talent team will contact you with more information.

To Apply

Please submit your application online. In your cover letter, tell us a little bit about your favorite teacher! Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until this position is filled. 

A Final Note

The DonorsChoose team works toward a nation where students in every community have the resources needed for an excellent education. To do this we hire and support a diverse team of the best and the brightest talent available.

We are an organization increasingly representative of the varied races and ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, religious and political beliefs, and abilities that comprise our nation. DonorsChoose focuses on attracting, retaining, and advancing diverse talent because it makes us more effective, high-performing, creative, and resilient.  

If you are passionate about our mission, highly skilled in your field, and looking for a place where you can bring all of yourself to work, we want you.