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Engineering Manager, Data Science

HopSkipDrive

HopSkipDrive

Data Science
Remote
Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Who we are

HopSkipDrive’s mission is to create opportunity for all through mobility. Our innovative, supplemental school transportation solutions are used by over 400 school districts, charter schools, nonprofits, government agencies, as well as busy families to safely and reliably get kids where they need to go.

Student transportation is the largest mass transit system in the U.S. The way kids get to and from school has a direct impact on our kids, families, schools and communities. While school districts spend $28 billion annually on transportation, only 30% of kids get to school on a bus. The current system can no longer meet all the transportation needs of our districts, schools and families — and its shortcomings are causing inequities in educational access that are affecting the welfare of millions of kids each day.

HopSkipDrive is taking a different approach to arranging safe, reliable school transportation that meets needs that aren’t being addressed by the current system, helping to fill gaps and supplement the student transportation options available. We create personalized transportation solutions for the one to the many, and everything in between.

We’re a company with heart

Our partnerships with school districts, child welfare agencies and nonprofits ensure equitable educational access for the most vulnerable populations, including youth in foster care, children experiencing homelessness and students with disabilities.

We understand that the difference between struggle and success can sometimes be as simple as the ability to show up, which is why we’re on a mission to use innovative technology — coupled with operational expertise and new ways of thinking — to help kids reach their full potential by providing a safe, dependable way to get them where they are going.

We’re an awesome place to work

Our company culture has been well-recognized — HopSkipDrive has been named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list, as well as Best Places to Work lists from Built In LA, Comparably, Inc., and the Los Angeles Business Journal. Comparably also named us a Best Company for Professional Development, as well as to its Best CEO and Best CEOs for Women lists.

We’re growing rapidly

Founded by three moms as a solution to their own transportation challenges, we now operate across over 20 major markets and more than a dozen states across the country. We continue to expand at a rapid pace, making the Inc. 5000 list four times, as well as the Deloitte 500 Fast-Growing Technology list. HopSkipDrive has raised $100M in funding to date.

Who you are

You are looking for a challenging and rewarding experience. You are inspired by our vision and the opportunity to define a new category in an incredibly fast-growing market. You are excited to learn, grow and collaborate so we can achieve our mission of creating opportunity for all through mobility.

At HopSkipDrive, we know that challenges require different approaches, unique perspectives and new ways of thinking. We are building a team of creative problem-solvers from many different backgrounds.You’re a passionate team builder enthusiastic about finding, engaging and scaling a high performing distributed team. You’ll find energy telling HopSkipDrive’s story to diverse candidates across functions and will thoughtfully assess their backgrounds and expertise to match them with the right role on our team.

Your role:

As an Engineering Manager, Data Science you are an accomplished data scientist and software engineer, having led successful projects as an individual contributor before directly managing teams of four or more engineers and data scientists. You are fully comfortable with agile management practices, and are a

proven project manager who has delivered many large projects successfully. As a technical leader you are constantly tracking the team’s efficiency and quality of deliverables at SDLC and regularly adjusting processes and timelines to ensure high quality is delivered. You take responsibility for producing models and software that are highly available, monitorable, and maintainable over time.

While in this role, you will spend more time managing, there is an expectation that you will still be heavily involved in technical decision-making, model building, and writing code, without blocking or slowing down the progress of your team. You hold responsibility for identifying bottlenecks in the process and roadblocks to success for your team and clearing these roadblocks.

In this role your success will be determined by the success of your team. In particular, as a leader you are capable of identifying the most high-value projects and keeping your team focused on these projects. As part of keeping the team focused you will partner closely with business stakeholders to manage project scope and ensure the technical deliverables are met. In addition to focusing the team, you are capable of identifying headcount needs for the team and planning and recruiting to fill these needs.

As an Engineering Manager you operate as and are comfortable managing team members with different skill sets from your own. You communicate expectations clearly to all team members, solicit and deliver individual feedback frequently (not just in the scope of review periods). In addition to strong management skills, as the engineering lead you act as a leader for the technical roadmap for the pillar. You are able to clearly communicate the timeline, scope and risks to your pillar partners, and lead the delivery of major initiatives on clear timelines. Additionally, you identify areas of strategic technical debt, do the cost/benefit analysis for resolving this debt and communicate suggested timelines for prioritizing this to the management team.

Above all, you want to build something that fundamentally improves the lives of families.

What you will do:

  • Build a data science team at HopSkipDrive by determining our hiring needs, writing job descriptions, screening candidates, writing and reviewing technical assessments, and conducting interviews
  • Work with business stakeholders to identify the low-hanging fruit at HopSkipDrive for building statistical machine learning and/or LLM models to solve high-impact problems
  • In conjunction with the DevOps team, architect and create the data science pipeline to rapidly iterate on models and deploy them for use in HopSkipDrive’s production systems
  • Identify and clear bottlenecks and roadblocks to the team’s success
  • Conduct weekly 1:1s with direct reports
  • Performance management - providing positive and constructive feedback
  • Foster Continuous Improvement mindset amongst team
  • Responsible for the successful planning and delivery of projects
  • Review Pull Requests and promote high code quality and testing standards on the team
  • Identify areas of strategic technical debt, do the cost/benefit analysis for resolving this debt and
  • communicate suggested timelines for prioritizing this to the management team
  • Break up large features and long-term initiatives into smaller deliverables
  • Collaborate with VP of Engineering on technical roadmap
  • Continue to contribute to feature development and bug fixes at the level of a Sr. Software Engineer
  • Exhibit high standards when Interviewing and evaluating prospective engineering candidate

What you'll need:

  • 5+ years of professional experience as a data scientist or software engineer
  • 3+ years of professional Python
  • 3+ years of professional SQL
  • 3+ years shipping production data models in a business environment
  • 2+ years managing software engineers and/or data scientists
  • Strong expertise designing data collection and data storage processes for model building
  • Skilled at testing and retraining models after deployment
  • Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical teammates and show a high level
  • of emotional and professional maturity.
  • A high level of craftsmanship about your work, the end experience of the user, and impact on
  • overall product
  • Expertise with Agile Software Development practices and able to adopt the appropriate process
  • to fit the needs of a team
  • Successful track record of delivering high-impact projects in a fast-paced environment

** This role will be fully remote from a state where we do business AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, IL, KS, MD, WI, OK, UT, TN, NC, SC, NV, NJ, NY, OR, TX, VA, WA, MO, MI

What you will get

We want you to be an owner in our company and share in executing our vision, so every full-time employee has equity. In addition, we offer competitive market comp, flexible vacation, FSA, medical, dental and vision, 401(k), and an opportunity to work for a uniquely positioned, VC-backed company in a hugely attractive space with significant upside potential. HopSkipDrive is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The salary range for this role is $170,000 to $200,000 year. Final compensation for this role will be determined by several factors such as a candidate’s relevant work experience, skill set and specific work location. The total compensation package for this role also includes equity stock options

Equal Opportunity Employer

HopSkipDrive is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected class. HopSkipDrive is also proud to operate as a drug-free workplace.