About the Role

OpenAI's ads platform is experiencing rapid global scale. As the Lead Data Scientist for SMB Ads Growth, you will architect the analytics function end-to-end—driving strategy across targeting, funnel optimization, and performance forecasting. You will work directly with the SMB Ads Marketing team and your insights will be the primary catalyst for high-stakes decisions across marketing, product, and sales engineering.

What You'll Do

Full-Funnel Analytics

• Establish the foundational growth metrics and North Star KPIs for the SMB Ads ecosystem, optimizing the journey from lead acquisition to long-term retention.

• Diagnose funnel friction points through advanced behavioral analysis and quantify the incremental revenue impact of proposed optimizations.

• Partner cross-functionally to transform complex data findings into actionable, high-priority roadmaps for product and marketing stakeholders.

Targeting, Segmentation & Propensity Modeling

• Engineer sophisticated propensity models and look-alike frameworks to identify and capture high-LTV SMB advertisers.

• Own the lifecycle of target list construction, including advanced data enrichment, multi-dimensional prioritization, and granular performance tracking.

• Develop robust segmentation architectures that power hyper-personalized outreach across paid, partnership, and outsourced (BPO) channels.

• Synthesize market signals to refine our value proposition, ensuring OpenAI remains a key platform for SMB business growth.

Campaign Analytics & Measurement

• Design and implement rigorous multi-touch attribution and incrementality frameworks to evaluate channel efficacy.

• Lead the experimental roadmap: formulate hypotheses, execute A/B and multivariate tests, and communicate results to executive leadership.

• Automate business-critical reporting and dashboards to provide real-time visibility during weekly operating reviews.

Forecasting & Planning

• Build high-fidelity revenue and advertiser growth models to project performance against quarterly and annual targets.

• Simulate the impact of various growth levers—such as regional expansion and channel activation—to drive strategic resource allocation.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 5+ years of experience in data science or growth analytics within an ads platform, marketplace, or high-growth B2B environment.

• Proven track record of deploying machine learning models (propensity, LTV) that significantly moved business metrics.

• Strong SQL; proficient in Python or R.

• Experience thriving in ambiguous "0-to-1" environments, with a hands-on approach to building data infrastructure and processes.

Strongly Preferred

• Prior experience at a major scaled ads platform (e.g., Meta, Google, LinkedIn).

• Experience working in 0-1 environments

• A deep passion for artificial intelligence and proficiency in leveraging AI tools to accelerate modeling and insight generation.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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