Data Scientist - Consumer Financial Wellness | Acorns

At Acorns, we're building a different kind of investing experience - one that looks after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming. The Acorns team is passionate about pursuing our mission and living our values. It all begins with Heart. Our Heart leads us in everything we do. It allows us to make bold decisions, build trust, grow and advance our society. Come find your place at Acorns and join us in the revolution.

Acorns is seeking an experienced Data Scientist/Modeler to develop the models and methods that deliver on the vision of “looking after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming.” These will be high-value strategic and analytical models that provide insights and personalized recommendations to Acorns customers to achieve their financial objectives. In this role, you’ll impact the lives of millions of people. You will leverage your analytical expertise to deliver and execute an end-to-end analytics process in order to deliver best-in-class insights to our customers.

You will be working on a variety of projects. You thrive on working in a fast paced environment, delighting your customers, and winning. You’re a team player, committed to learning, developing your team, and yourself. You believe in setting the highest standards and working hard as a team to reach them.

Job Responsibilities:

• Take models end-to-end from prototype to production.
• Build algorithms that touch the cutting edge of statistics and machine learning.
• Define problems, collect data, establish facts, draw valid conclusions, and make recommendations for continuous improvement.
• Apply state of the art machine learning, statistics or data mining in a variety of areas, including user and product analysis.
• Invent and fast iterate on novel solutions to challenging data related problems.
• Develop scalable and efficient methods for large scale data analyses and model development.
• Work across the entire company, from listening to customers to pitching ideas to the CEO.
• Wrangle data and find solutions regardless of speed or scale — everything is in play, from Hadoop, Spark, to columnar relational databases and beyond.
• Engage at the highest level of socratic and technical abilities.
• Uphold the values of transparency, highest ethical standards, and unconditional support of the team.
• Derive pride from technical excellence, and pursue excellence in all areas of work.

Job Requirements:

• MS in Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Engineering or a related field.
• 7+ years experience in modeling of consumer personal finance and life events.
• Proven expertise in Monte Carlo methods and/or other methods for forward simulation and forecasting outcomes under uncertainties.
• Proficiency in Python, Scala, R, with related statistical and machine learning packages.
• Background in data mining, machine learning, statistical analysis, and modeling, with experience deploying models in a production environment.
• Strong SQL abilities and experience with massive relational database systems.
• Superior communication skills, including the ability to take complex, ambiguous topics and create compelling narratives for different audiences.
• Driven to learn fast, be creative, and win as a team.

Bonus

• PhD in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Engineering or a related field.
• Understanding of natural language processing techniques.
• Ability to write production quality code.
• Experience considering user psychology and user experience.
• Experience with A/B testing methodologies and experiments.
• Experience with distributed computing frameworks like Hadoop, Redshift, Spark, etc.
• Knowledge of basic micro-economic concepts.

Location

• Irvine, California.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and stock options.
• A comprehensive benefits package to meet the needs of you and your family.
• Unlimited paid time off.
• Corporate gym access.
• Daily breakfast, weekly team lunches, and an endless supply of snacks.
• Numerous career possibilities that allow you to grow with Acorns.
• Talented and motivated team members who care deeply about one another, our mission and our customers.
• The rare opportunity to create a new world. We inspire one another every day to do meaningful work that solves big societal challenges.

About Acorns:

Acorns is the leading micro-investing app in the U.S. It allows users to round up their daily purchases and automatically Invest the Change® into a low-cost, diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds offered by some of the world's top asset managers (including Vanguard and BlackRock). Founded in Newport Beach, Calif., by father and son team Walter and Jeff Cruttenden, Acorns provides a simple entry-point using the Acorns app on iPhone or Android. Customers accumulate fractional shares in one of five portfolios constructed by world-renowned Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz. Acorns' smart portfolio algorithms automatically work in the background of life, helping users build wealth naturally, pennies at a time. From Acorns mighty oaks do grow.

Mission:

With benevolence and courage, we look after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming; beginning with the empowering step of micro-investing. 

Values:

1. Lead with heart
2. Make bold decisions
3. Always build trust
4. Never stop growing
5. Advance our society