Senior Data Scientist, Algorithms - Lyft Ads

At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect. We aim to achieve this by cultivating a work environment where all team members belong and have the opportunity to thrive.

Lyft Ads is one of Lyft’s newest and fastest-growing businesses, focused on building the world’s largest transportation media network. Our mission is to help brands reach riders during key moments of their journey—before, during, and after a ride—by delivering meaningful, contextually relevant ad experiences. We operate at the intersection of mobility data, real-time decision systems, and AI-powered personalization, enabling advertisers to run high-impact campaigns with measurable outcomes.

We are seeking an Algorithms Scientist  to help build the next generation of ads relevance, targeting, optimization, and measurement algorithms that power the Lyft Ads platform. In this role, you will work across large-scale datasets and complex real-time systems to design, prototype, and deploy production-grade machine learning models. You’ll collaborate closely with Engineering, Product, Data Science, and Sales to translate ambiguous business and advertiser needs into rigorous algorithmic solutions that improve ad performance, enhance marketplace efficiency, and drive meaningful revenue growth.

This is a high-impact, highly technical role within a rapidly scaling business line. The ideal candidate brings strong applied machine learning intuition, hands-on modeling experience, and the ability to write clean, efficient production code. You will play a critical role in shaping how advertisers connect with Lyft riders—pushing the boundaries of personalization, measurement, and real-time optimization in a dynamic marketplace.

Responsibilities:

• Lead multiple high-impact Machine Learning and AI initiatives across the Lyft Ads platform — including relevance, targeting, bidding, pacing, delivery optimization, conversion prediction, and measurement systems.
• Define the modeling strategy, technical roadmap, and success metrics for ML components that power ad-serving and advertiser performance, ensuring alignment with business and revenue goals.
• Own complex, open-ended problem spaces, breaking down ambiguous advertiser, marketplace, and system constraints into well-structured modeling approaches and scientific requirements.
• Design, develop, and deploy advanced machine learning, optimization, and decisioning algorithms for large-scale real-time and batch systems, balancing scientific rigor with practical engineering constraints (latency, throughput, cost, reliability).
• Partner deeply with Ads Engineering, Infra, and Product to architect production-grade ML systems — including feature stores, training pipelines, online scoring services, monitoring, A/B frameworks, and model governance processes.
• Establish robust evaluation frameworks, defining offline metrics, calibration checks, counterfactual methods, experiment designs, and long-term measurement strategies to ensure model correctness and system stability.
• Diagnose systemic issues (drift, feedback loops, cold start, pacing imbalance, auction inefficiencies) and lead cross-functional efforts to improve model performance, user experience, and advertiser ROI.
• Drive algorithmic innovation by introducing new techniques from ranking, causal inference, reinforcement learning, probabilistic modeling, graph ML, or optimization, and evaluating their feasibility for large-scale ads systems.
• Build reusable modeling infrastructure, libraries, and best practices, enabling faster iteration and higher modeling quality across the broader Ads Science and Engineering teams.
• Mentor and guide junior/mid-level scientists and MLEs, serving as a technical advisor on modeling design, experimentation, code quality, and scientific reasoning.
• Represent Algorithm Science in cross-functional planning, ensuring algorithms are grounded in strong methodology and aligned with Ads business priorities, advertiser needs, and platform constraints.

Experience:

• Master’s or PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Optimization, Statistics, Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related quantitative field; or equivalent high-impact industry experience.
• 5+ years of applied science or machine learning experience, with a track record of deploying production models that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to own multi-project modeling scope across ambiguous problem spaces and integrate work across engineering, product, and data science partners.
• Deep expertise in:
• Ranking and relevance modeling
• CTR/CVR prediction, calibration, and uncertainty modeling
• Optimization and pacing algorithms
• Auction dynamics or marketplace delivery systems
• Causal inference methods for ads measurement
• Strong proficiency in Python, ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, scikit-learn), and distributed data systems (Spark, Snowflake, Databricks).
• Proven experience building large-scale, production-ready ML systems, including model servers, training pipelines, monitoring/alerting, and real-time inference services.
• Ability to define and execute offline and online evaluation strategies, including experiment design, counterfactual analysis, and diagnostics for model/system failures.
• Strong technical leadership skills — able to align partners, influence technical architecture, challenge assumptions, and guide cross-team modeling decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor other scientists, elevate technical quality, and improve modeling/analysis standards across the team.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex modeling concepts, system trade-offs, and scientific reasoning to both technical and business stakeholders.
• Track record of driving measurable improvements to model performance, advertiser outcomes, or system efficiency through innovative modeling or optimization techniques.

Benefits:

• Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options with additional programs available when enrolled
• Mental health benefits
• Family building benefits
• Child care and pet benefits
• 401(k) plan to help save for your future
• In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have discretionary paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
• Subsidized commuter benefits
• Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program

Lyft is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

Lyft highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule — Team Members will be expected to work in the office 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Lyft considers working in the office at least 3 days per week to be an essential function of this hybrid role. Your recruiter can share more information about the various in-office perks Lyft offers. Additionally, hybrid roles have the flexibility to work from anywhere for up to 4 weeks per year. #Hybrid

The expected base pay range for this position in the New York City area is $148,000 - $185,000. Salary ranges are dependent on a variety of factors, including qualifications, experience and geographic location. Range is not inclusive of potential equity offering, bonus or benefits. Your recruiter can share more information about the salary range specific to your working location and other factors during the hiring process.

Total compensation is dependent on a variety of factors, including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. Your recruiter can share more information about the salary range specific to your working location and other factors during the hiring process.