Senior Data Scientist

We're transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Overview

This is a general posting for multiple Senior Data Science roles open across our 4-sided marketplace. Roles are open at both the L5 (Senior Data Scientist I) and L6 (Senior Data Scientist II) levels. You’ll get the chance to learn about the different problems the Data Science team solves as you go through the process. Towards the end of your process, we’ll do a team-matching exercise to determine which of the open roles/teams you’ll join. At the bottom of this posting, you’ll find a breakdown of the currently open roles.

About the Job

• Own analytical frameworks that guide the product roadmap.

• Design rigorous experiments and interpret results to draw detailed and actionable conclusions.

• Develop statistical models to extract trends, measure results, and predict future performance of our products.

• Build simulations to project the impact of various product and policy interventions.

• Enable objective decision-making across the company by democratizing data through dashboards and other analytical tools.

• Use expertise in causal inference, machine learning, complex systems modeling, behavioral decision theory, etc., to shape the future of Instacart.

• Present findings in a compelling way to influence Instacart’s leadership.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience working in a quantitative role at a product company or a research organization.

• Ability to run rigorous experiments and generate scientifically sound recommendations.

• Ability to write complex, efficient, and eloquent SQL queries to extract data.

• Ability to write efficient and eloquent code in Python or R.

• A desire to build and improve consumer software products.

• Ability to translate business needs into analytical frameworks.

• Eagerness to learn, flexibility to pivot when needed, savviness to navigate a dynamic environment, and a growth mindset to build a successful team and company.

Preferred Qualifications

• Awareness of business trade-offs when working on a multi-sided marketplace.

• Confidence in collaborating with and influencing cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., Product, Engineering) at a senior level.

• MS/PhD in Statistics, Economics, Applied Mathematics, or a related field.

Currently Opened Roles

Marketing | Sr. Data Scientist I (L5)

The Marketing Data Science team is responsible for measurement and optimization across Instacart’s paid digital channels, including search, shopping, display, social, and video. As a Senior Data Scientist, you’ll build and maintain sophisticated attribution models—including multi-touch and incrementality-based approaches—and develop scalable data pipelines to turn raw marketing data into clean, analysis-ready datasets. You’ll apply causal inference methods such as geo holdouts and difference-in-differences to evaluate campaign effectiveness, partnering closely with marketing, data engineering, and business teams to define measurement frameworks and drive data-informed decisions. You'll also model user lifetime value (LTV) across acquisition cohorts, quantifying how marketing spend and channel mix influence long-term retention and monetization to inform budget allocation and growth strategy

#LI-Remote

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here. For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$194,000—$204,500 USD

WA

$185,000—$195,500 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$177,000—$187,000 USD

All other states

$161,000—$170,000 USD