Data Scientist II

Data Scientist II

Location: Chicago, IL 

Office: 3 days/week in South Loop office

Reports to: CTO

Salary Range: $150,000-$179,000+ Equity

Start Date: ASAP

About Tavern ResearchTavern Research is a political tech startup that builds tools and insights to help our customers win elections and make better decisions. We specialize in scaling expert human work, like content generation and survey research. We're a venture-backed, mission driven, fast-moving, mostly technical team focused on supporting winning campaigns. Everything else is on our website. If you still have questions, let us know when you apply!

• Lead the design and analysis of experiments using methods like randomized trials, difference-in-differences, and causal inference.
• Build, maintain, and evaluate advanced statistical and machine learning models that generate political and behavioral insights.
• Engineer features and build scalable pipelines from messy, real-world datasets.
• Write clean, production-ready Python code and documentation.
• Drive rigorous model evaluation, diagnostics, and iteration to ensure reliability.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to translate open-ended questions into solvable modeling approaches.
• Contribute to the team’s technical direction by introducing new methods, tools, or frameworks.
• Provide peer support and mentorship to junior modelers, helping to grow team capacity.

• We know it’s rare to check every box. If you meet most of these, we encourage you to apply:
• This role is designed for experienced modelers with 4+ years of relevant experience who can independently lead complex modeling projects.
• Proven track record of leading substantive modeling projects that delivered real-world impact.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and modern ML/AI libraries, with ability to write production-quality code.
• Extensive experience working with messy, large-scale datasets.
• Depth in advanced techniques such as causal inference, topic modeling, network analysis, embeddings, optimization, or agentic systems, with strong grounding in experiment design and statistical evaluation.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate models rigorously and iterate quickly.
• Strong communication skills with ability to explain complex concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborative mindset and comfort with modern engineering workflows (version control, testing, code review).Prior experience mentoring or supporting junior modelers, and exposure to production ML pipelines.

• Premium health insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Office closed for all federal holidays
• 401k match
• Equity