The RoleWe are seeking a dynamic,
hands-on Head of Data Science who will lead our data science and analytics organization from vision through delivery and operations. This person works closely with Product, Engineering, Design, the Leadership Team, and other stakeholders, and will both set strategy and roll up their sleeves when needed to drive a fast moving, dynamic product and growing Data Science organisation in the AI era.
What you'll DoAs Head of Data Science, you will:
Technical Leadership & Strategy- Define and drive the company-wide data science strategy - spanning analytics, experimentation, and applied ML/AI - end-to-end, from how raw data is collected until it's used in user-facing features or for internal decision making.
- Ensure teams at Linktree have the capabilities to make sound data-driven decisions and build the platforms and frameworks to hold teams accountable to high standards in decision making.
- Build the data science foundations behind financial forecasting, and the frameworks that hold teams accountable for hitting company targets.
- Advance Linktree's transformation into an insights- and AI-powered product with a clear, differentiated value proposition for our users.
- Make critical decisions on modeling approaches, experimentation infrastructure, and ML/AI systems design, ensuring they are scalable, rigorous, and production-ready.
Hands-On Execution- Contribute to major technical components, critical feature-launches, etc. and occasionally contribute insights deep dives.
- Being involved in solution design for high-complexity or high-risk data or AI investments to maintain technical quality and help unblock teams.
- Lead or participate in technical deep-dives, especially for cross-team initiatives or for when the design has broad implications.
Cross-Functional Collaboration- Collaborate with Engineering, Product, and Design to deeply integrate the right data capabilities into teams, ensuring data and AI are core to how we build.
- Represent Data to the executive team, surface key insights, communicate technical tradeoffs, risks, and timelines in terms non-tech stakeholders understand.
- Collaborate on budget, resource allocation, technology investment decisions.
- Evangelize data science and AI practices both internally and externally through thought leadership like conference speaking.
Team Building, Mentorship & Management- Build, grow, and mentor senior leaders, both as managers and ICs. Ensure strong leadership across your team.
- Recruit and retain top data talent, help define hiring strategy, interviewing, and onboarding.
- Ensure our teams leverage data to its full potential to make sound data-driven decisions and foster a culture of learning, decision quality, ownership, psychological safety, and accountability.
- Lead adoption of AI-driven tools to drive productivity and ensure we're on the forefront of modern engineering and product building workflows.
Process, Governance & Scaling- Establish best practices across the entire data lifecycle (instrumentation, data engineering, insights, experimentation, ML and AI validation) and the frameworks to hold teams accountable to these practices.
- Maintain effectiveness and reliability of AI and user-facing insights solutions by establishing monitoring, alerting and remediation processes.
- Continuously partner with Product and Engineering to evaluate and evolve the cross-functional product org structure to match the company's growth, ensuring clarity of ownership, effective collaboration, and decision-making velocity.
What Success Looks Like- Linktree has a unique value proposition in the market due to data and AI-driven capabilities.
- Decision making throughout the organization is based on sound insights.
- Team attrition is healthy, team members are growing in their roles and the management pipeline is strong.
- Stakeholders (Product, Customers, Execs) trust data and insights.
- The data function is a key partner in business decision making, not just a delivery engine.
- You'll work directly with the CEO, who is product-led and values data as a thought partner, not just a delivery function.
What You'll Bring- 12+ years in data science, applied ML, or analytics, with at least 5+ years leading managers or directors in growing, fast-paced environments.
- Track record of designing and launching large scale user-facing data or AI driven product capabilities with measurable impact.
- Track record of transforming organisational culture to become data driven, including self-service insights and experimentation.
- Deep technical expertise in data science, statistical modeling, and applied ML/AI, with working fluency in the data engineering and platform concepts needed to partner effectively with engineering.
- Proven track record of direct contributions at technical level, even as leader.
- Excellent leadership, mentoring, and people-management skills; ability to recruit and retain strong talent.
- Strong collaboration, communication, ability to simplify & explain technical issues to executives and cross-functional teams.
Preferred / Nice-to-Haves- Experience scaling teams across multiple geographies
- Prior experience in Saas / Consumer tech
Linktree is committed to providing a fair and competitive compensation package including cash, equity, and benefits. The base salary offered for this role is targeted at $320,000-$340,000 for roles based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Final offers depend on multiple factors including location, experience, expertise, and role scope, and may vary from the range listed.
P.S. If you don't tick every box in this listing, please don't rule yourself out. We take pride in inclusion and hiring incredible human beings with great potential over ticking boxes - so if this role resonates with you, hit that apply button!
