ML Data Science Manager - Marketplace Analytics, Apple Ads

ML Data Science Manager - Marketplace Analytics, Apple Ads

At Apple, we work every day to create products that enrich people's lives. Our Apple Ads group makes it possible for people around the world to easily access informative and imaginative content on their devices while helping publishers and developers promote and monetize their work. Our technology and services power advertising in Apple News, the App Store, and on Apple TV+. Our platforms are highly performant, deployed at scale, and set new standards for enabling effective advertising while protecting user privacy.

Description

The Data Insights team within Apple Ads is seeking a bright and endlessly curious data expert to lead our Core Insights team that supports the organization. This individual will be responsible for leading a team that turns the huge amounts of data generated by user searches, app metadata, and App Store content into business insights that improve the customer experience for the end-user as well as drive discovery and productivity for app developers. We are seeking a self-motivated leader that can execute on near-term plans and contribute to defining a longer-term vision for our team and Apple Ads. This role involves working with internet-scale data across numerous product and customer touch points; undertaking in-depth, quantitative analysis on business performance; developing and running prediction and forecasting models; and building ML models including LLMs to drive core business decisions. The team's culture is focused on rapid iteration with open feedback and debate along the way, plus strong collaboration with product, engineering, business, and marketing partners. You will have experience hiring and leading large-scale, sophisticated data science teams that deliver impactful insights via pattern mining, anomaly detection, modeling, classification, and creation of wide ranging analytical tooling. Successful candidates will take pride in implementing and sustaining end-to-end analytical solutions that have direct and measurable impact. The role requires both a broad knowledge of existing data mining algorithms and creativity to invent and customize when necessary.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities include:

• Apply best-in-class modeling and analytics techniques to enable rapid insights discovery for multiple business, cross-functional teams and senior leadership.
• Lead development of all predictive models on seasonality, anomaly detection, forecasting metrics for all ad businesses. Guide end-to-end lifecycle stages from PoC development, testing, industrialization and monitoring model performance.
• Lead classification and categorization of queries, apps, and discovery of app cohorts using ML models/ LLMs. Extract contextual signals from aggregated interaction data to feed into ads marketplace design.
• Lead analysis of business metrics, their interactions, and framework design on deep-dive investigations. Monitor usage metrics, provide business-based explanations for large-scale trends and patterns.
• Lead creation of self-serve, analytics tools and data products to enable insights discovery at lightning speed and scale.
• Automate and scale existing analysis methods. Institute new approaches on modeling and analysis frameworks.
• Guide statistical analysis, model development and visualization of data to help understand how advertisers use Apple Ads for app promotion.
• Support a wide variety of stakeholders ranging from sales, finance, product, engineering, and senior leadership. Frequently present insights to senior leaders and be able to distill findings into clear, comprehensible, and actionable insights.
• Lead a team of multiple managers and ICs. Hire and develop leading talent with proven, relevant, data science skills. Motivate and ensure success for the team by defining roles and responsibilities that are clearly communicated, define and share a strategic vision for the function, establish processes, and develop personal development plans.
• Empower global business teams with insights to inform and fulfill strategic objectives and goals.

Minimum Qualifications

Minimum qualifications include:

• 10+ years of data science experience with 3+ years of experience leading data science, or machine learning teams.
• 2+ years of experience in mobile advertising and performance-based advertising platforms.
• Experience in statistical analysis, machine learning models, and advanced quantitative methods with a strong focus in experiment design and causal inference. Must include experience with regression, classification, clustering, time-series analysis, and LLMs.
• Exceptional programming skills in Python and SQL. Comfort with advanced analytics and data visualization tools and libraries such as Pandas, R, Spark, and Tableau.
• Deep familiarity with commonly used Statistics and ML libraries such as ScikitLearn, SparkMLLib, SciPy, and/or StatsModels. Familiarity with Causal Inference packages such as CausalImpact, DoubleML, DoWhy, and EconML is a big plus.
• Experience working with modern data engineering technologies and cloud-based data warehousing solutions. Familiarity with database modeling and data warehousing principles.
• Exceptional communication, collaboration, stakeholder management, and planning skills; demonstrated success building buy-in for an innovative and bold vision.
• Must be able to guide and lead ML data scientists embedded into engineering capabilities. Seamlessly collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders including senior leadership, product managers, finance, engineering. Able to create trust.
• Have a strategic mindset with an aptitude to condense complex concepts, analysis, and models into actionable data driven solutions and strategies that will propel Apple's digital advertising businesses.
• Bachelor's in a quantitative field, such as Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Econometrics, Operations Research, Social Sciences, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Preferred qualifications include:

• 15+ years of data science experience with 5+ years of experience leading data science, or machine learning teams.
• 4+ years of experience in mobile advertising and performance-based advertising platforms, direct work experience in ad auctions, especially keyword matching, predictions, ranking, pricing, or relevance is a big plus.
• Ph.D. or Masters in a quantitative field, such as Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Econometrics, Operations Research, Social Sciences, or equivalent professional experience.

Pay & Benefits

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $198,300 and $298,100, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple's discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple's Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You'll also receive benefits including: Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, retirement benefits, a range of discounted products and free services, and for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses including tuition. Additionally, this role might be eligible for discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.