Data Scientist - Places

Foursquare is the leading independent location technology and data cloud platform, dedicated to building meaningful bridges between digital spaces and physical places. Our proprietary technology unlocks the most accurate, trustworthy location data in the world, empowering businesses to answer key questions, uncover hidden insights, improve customer experiences, and achieve better business outcomes. A pioneer of the geo-location space, Foursquare’s location tech stack is being utilized by the world’s largest enterprises and most recognizable brands.

Foursquare’s flexible building blocks include technology to maximize marketing impact and drive incremental real-world engagement (Attribution, Audience, Proximity, SDK);  data to deeply understand points of interest and real-world behavior patterns (Places and Visits), and tools to conduct advanced analysis, data enrichment, unification and visualization (Unfolded Studio).

About the role:

We are looking for a data scientist to join our Places team. The Places team is the main owner of Foursquare’s Places products. We combine billions of individual pieces of information into a comprehensive dataset of hundreds of millions of places around the world. From restaurants to bars, stores to parks, hotels to colleges, our database spans every type of point-of-interest across the world. The Foursquare places database is considered the largest and highest quality independent dataset in the world. In addition to powering our branded products, Places is the location layer for the internet, powering the location features of tens of thousands developers, including Apple, Microsoft, Uber and many more.

Responsibilities of the role

• Build supervised/unsupervised machine learning models that predict Places attributes and quality
• Build Hadoop MapReduce and Spark processing pipelines using Scala and Python, that directly enhance our Places products and client deliveries
• Conduct ad-hoc data investigation and data-driven approaches for insights extraction
• Write test automation, conduct code reviews, and take end-to-end ownership of deployments to production
• Build internal tools for monitoring and investigation purposes, and to communicate updates to internal and external users

Qualifications:

• BS/BA in a quantitative field of study (computer science, data science, applied mathematics, etc.) or equivalent experience
• 1–3 years of machine learning and software development experience
• Proficiency in Scala, Python, Java, and/or Ruby
• Good knowledge of machine learning and data science fundamentals
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to identify and communicate data-driven insights

Nice to have:

• Experience with Hadoop MapReduce and/or Spark data processing pipelines
• Experience with Machine learning technologies, like Spark ML, scikit-learn, keras, etc.
• Experience with Amazon Web Services, like EMR & S3

Perks and benefits:

• Learning and development programs from individual contributors to managers
• Individual, professional coaching for all full-time employees
• Flexible time off - rest and recharge when you need it!
• Comprehensive and competitive health, vision, dental, life insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Home office setup: you get all necessary hardware and internet reimbursement 
• Family planning programs via Carrot and Maven
• Employee Resource Groups to help you stay connected

Foursquare is proud to foster an inclusive environment that is free from discrimination. We strongly believe in order to build the best products, we need a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. This leads to a more delightful experience for our users and team members. We value listening to every voice and we encourage everyone to come be a part of building a company and products we love.

Foursquare is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.