SUMMARY:The Director of Soccer Analytics leads the club's soccer analytics function in support of scouting and recruitment across MLS, MLS NEXT Pro, and Academy pathways. This role owns recruitment data strategy, player evaluation models, and scouting decision-support, ensuring alignment of methodology, data providers, and reporting standards across the organization.
This position plays a critical role in supporting evidence-based recruitment by unifying event, tracking, and video data, benchmarking targets, and delivering clear, actionable player assessments.
The ideal candidate is a trusted contributor with deep applied experience in football analytics who can translate complex data into actionable scouting insights while building scalable tools and partnering closely with scouts, coaches, and sporting leadership.
RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:- Lead the club-wide soccer analytics strategy in support of scouting and recruitment across Real Salt Lake, Real Monarchs, and the RSL Academy, ensuring vertical alignment across MLS, MLS NEXT Pro, and Academy pathways.
- Establish standardized methodologies for player identification, evaluation, and comparison, including positional profiles, benchmarking, and similarity modeling.
- Manage recruitment data providers and integrations (e.g., StatsBomb, Wyscout, SkillCorner, etc.), ensuring high-quality event and tracking data and actionable insights.
- Build and maintain player evaluation models supporting performance benchmarking, age-curve and contract-value analysis, and transfer-target shortlisting.
- Design and maintain recruitment dashboards, overseeing data ingestion, cleaning, storage, and integration to ensure data integrity and accessibility.
- Direct scouting analytics and reporting, including dashboard development, player reports, squad-needs analysis, and applied machine learning for talent identification.
- Collaborate closely with the Sporting Director, scouts, and coaches to deliver unified recruitment decision-support informed by data, video, and live exposure.
- Translate complex data and analytical insights into clear, actionable decision support for scouts, sporting leadership, and executives.
- Own the analytics workflow and manage recruitment timelines around transfer windows, setting analytical priorities, and ensuring timely delivery to the scouting department.
- Evaluate and integrate emerging data sources, technologies, and research, driving continuous improvement and innovation across all scouting environments.
- Promote knowledge sharing and best practices across teams, ensuring insights from MLS, MLS NEXT Pro, and Academy environments elevate the entire organization.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor's degree in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, or a related field.
- Demonstrated experience applying analytics to soccer scouting and recruitment required.
- Minimum of 5 years of applied experience in football analytics, recruitment analysis, or comparable data-driven scouting environments.
- Advanced proficiency in R, Python, SQL, and data visualization platforms (Power BI, Tableau, Looker, or similar).
- Extensive experience with football event and tracking data and scouting platforms (e.g., StatsBomb, Opta, Wyscout, SkillCorner, Second Spectrum).
- Strong football tactical and player-evaluation knowledge, with the ability to contextualize data within game model and positional requirements.
- Demonstrated experience partnering with Sporting Directors, scouts, and coaches to support recruitment decisions across multi-team environments.
- Exceptional communication skills with the ability to present complex information clearly to diverse audiences.
- Proven ability to work independently, managing priorities, timelines, and transfer-window deliverables with accountability.
- Ability to collaborate within complex, multi-team environments while maintaining alignment, trust, and accountability.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:- Master's degree or PhD strongly preferred.
- Familiarity with machine learning concepts and applied modeling for player evaluation and talent identification.
- Background in scouting, coaching, video analysis, or data engineering.
- Experience designing recruitment dashboards, player comparison tools, and scouting reporting infrastructures.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENTThe job requires regularly lifting/pushing up to 10 pounds and occasionally lifting/pushing more than 25 pounds or exerting heavy force in a wide disparity or environmental conditions. The job involves standing, stooping, bending, lifting, pushing etc.
