Director of Data Science - Patient

Headway

$249K — $312K *
Healthcare
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in data science/analytics or related fields, including 6+ years in leadership roles.
  • Proven track record of implementing analytics to improve consumer growth outcomes.
  • Strong expertise in marketing analytics and collaboration with growth teams.
  • Ability to translate complex consumer journeys into actionable insights.
  • Exceptional leadership skills with a history of building high-performance teams.
  • Deep knowledge in experimental design and statistical methods for causal inference.
  • Experience working cross-functionally to enhance user experience.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the data science team to enhance patient product experiences.
  • Develop and execute analytics strategies for consumer acquisition and performance marketing.
  • Establish a rigorous experimentation culture across product and marketing.
  • Create mechanisms for turning insights into actionable recommendations.
  • Recruit and scale a team of data scientists and managers effectively.
  • Set and enforce metrics for evaluating performance across the organization.
  • Collaborate with other departments to enhance data-driven decision-making.

Benefits

  • Equity compensation for performance rewards.
  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
  • Flexible spending accounts (HSA/FSA) options.
  • 401K plan with employer contribution.
  • Work-from-home stipend to support remote work needs.
  • Reimbursement for therapy services to support employee mental health.
  • 16 weeks of parental leave for eligible employees.
  • Annual wellness benefits for fertility assistance.
  • 13 paid holidays plus an additional holiday break in December.
  • Flexible paid time off policy to support work-life balance.
  • Employee assistance program (EAP) for confidential support.
  • Ongoing training and professional development opportunities.
Full Job Description
Patients are at the center of Headway's mission - and analytics plays a critical role in how we serve them. As the Director of Data Science, Patient you will lead the data science organization that helps Headway build an extraordinarily successful consumer brand and patient marketplace, with a relentless focus on measurable growth and patient impact. You will be the data science peer to senior leaders across Product, Growth Marketing, Operations, Finance, and Clinical, and you will set the standards and direction for how we evaluate acquisition, conversion, retention, and outcomes. This is a senior leadership role for a driver who can turn ambiguity into clarity, build a high-performing team, and create the insight engine that makes a consumer healthcare business win.
In this role, you will:

Shape a world-class patient product experience
  • Partner with product, engineering, and operations to deeply understand the patient journey and identify the highest-leverage opportunities to improve discovery, conversion, and cures.
  • Lead the analytics approach for product changes: clarify goals, define success metrics and guardrails, diagnose trade-offs, and ensure learnings drive roadmap decisions.
  • Build strong segmentation and cohort understanding to explain who we serve best, where drop-offs happen, and what experiences drive long-term value.

Build the patient growth and marketing analytics engine
  • Own the analytics strategy for consumer acquisition and performance marketing, ensuring we can evaluate channel effectiveness, creative performance, conversion quality, CAC efficiency, and incrementality.
  • Partner with Growth Marketing and Finance to improve budget allocation decisions through clear measurement, forecasting inputs, and crisp performance narratives.
  • Establish an operating cadence that makes marketing performance, funnel health, and unit economics legible to leaders, and turns weekly learning into action.

Run a high-velocity learning system
  • Establish a rigorous experimentation culture across marketing and product, including clear hypotheses, fast iteration loops, strong guardrails, and decision-oriented readouts.
  • Create repeatable "insight to action" mechanisms: standardized deep dives, performance narratives, and decision memos that accelerate leadership alignment.

Scale an elite team
  • Lead, coach, and develop a team of data scientists and data science managers; set clear expectations for ownership, communication, and impact.
  • Recruit and retain world-class talent and build an org structure that scales from 6 - 8 people to roughly double that size through 2026.
  • Build strong managers and tech leads, and create a culture that is rigorous, curious, and relentlessly focused on business outcomes.

Own standards for truth and clarity
  • Define and enforce metric standards across the patient funnel so teams align on what matters and can confidently compare performance over time.
  • Ensure stakeholders have trustworthy self-serve reporting and clear definitions, minimizing time spent debating numbers.

Marketing analytics priorities (core to the role)
  • Performance marketing measurement: channel performance, creative learning, funnel conversion, landing experiences, and attribution.
  • Incrementally and causal measurement: designing tests and analyses that distinguish correlation from true impact.
  • Budget and efficiency narratives: CAC, payback, cohort quality, saturation effects, and marginal ROI.
  • Growth diagnostics: identifying why performance changed, what levers matter, and what actions will improve results.
You'll be a great fit if:
  • You have 10+ years of experience in data science/analytics, growth analytics, marketing analytics, product analytics, or data-driven strategy, including 6+ years leading and scaling teams.
  • You have built analytics that materially improved consumer growth outcomes: acquisition efficiency, conversion, retention, and product-led expansion.
  • You have strong marketing analytics instincts and can partner credibly with Growth leaders on channels, creative, attribution, and incrementality.
  • You can translate messy consumer journeys into clear metrics, crisp narratives, and high-quality decisions, without slowing teams down.
  • You are an exceptional leader and coach with a track record of hiring world-class talent and building high-performance teams.
  • You bring intellectual honesty and strong judgment, and you can push back when measurement is weak or narratives are wrong.
  • You have deep expertise in experimentation design, statistical inference, and causal methods such as CUPED, diff-in-diff, synthetic controls, or propensity modeling
  • Experience partnering cross functionally to drive measurable improvements in user experience or product performance
  • Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action, clarity, and iteration
  • You are motivated to advance Headway's mission to make mental healthcare more accessible and affordable across the United States
Compensation & Benefits:

The expected base pay range for this position is $249,600 - $312,000, based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for an equity grant, depending on the position and level.

We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.
  • Benefits offered include:
    • Equity compensation
    • Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
    • HSA / FSA
    • 401K
    • Work-from-Home Stipend
    • Therapy Reimbursement
    • 16-week parental leave for eligible employees
    • Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
    • 13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
    • Flexible PTO
    • Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
    • Training and professional development

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