Senior Research Scientist Applied Ml at Opendoor

About Opendoor:  
Founded in 2014, Opendoor’s mission is to empower everyone with the freedom to move. We believe the traditional real estate process is broken and our goal is simple: build a digital, end-to-end customer experience that makes buying and selling a home simple, certain and fast. We have assembled a dedicated team with diverse backgrounds to support more than 100,000 homes bought and sold with us and the customers who have selected Opendoor as a trusted partner in handling one of their largest financial transactions. But the work is far from over as we continue to grow in new markets. Transforming the real estate industry takes tenacity and dedication. It takes problem solvers and builders. It takes a tight knit community of teammates doing the best work of their lives, pushing one another to transform a complicated process into a simple one.  So where do you fit in? Whether you’re passionate about real estate, people, numbers, words, code, or strategy -- we have a place for you. Real estate is broken. Come help us fix it. 


About the Role: As a Senior Research Scientist, you will demonstrate data breakthroughs for Opendoor. You will create and develop a diverse portfolio of proofs of concept, balancing project risk versus potential impact. You have a portfolio mindset, minimizing risk by exploring a variety of uncorrelated projects, rigorously prioritizing projects given the uncertainty, and working inside fast feedback loops. Projects can range from step-function algorithmic improvements due to integrating new data sources to partial- or fully algorithmic automation of human processes, driving leveraged operational efficiencies. 

Our Team: 
Pricing Prediction - Responsible for all the core pricing prediction models, but in particular OVM (which predicts the value of a specific home right now) and HPA (which predicts the value of homes over time). If algorithmic pricing is the heart of Opendoor, this is the heart of algorithmic pricing. You can learn more about OVM, the Opendoor Valuation Model, on our blog. 


As a Research Scientist, you will: 

Build and evolve models that drive massive customer impact
Identify opportunities at all stages of the modeling lifecycle, including new models, new data sources, enhancements to models, and rapid feedback loops
Provoke trade-offs and prioritize work across a portfolio of potential projects based on impact and scope vs. effort and risk
Produce convincing structural and data-driven analyses to falsify ideas or move them forward
Clearly and concisely articulate the business impact of your work
Work pragmatically at a high cadence to ship modeling opportunities, such that we generate high learning throughput



We’re looking for teammates who have:

Ability to work with production ML/DL systems, including landing and reviewing production code
Knowledge of recent advancements in deep learning, both theoretical and applied
Mastery of coding and testing in Python or another object-oriented language
Ability to quickly (1-2 weeks) build proofs of concept and identify the highest-leverage areas to iterate efficiently
Experience building and deploying production models using deep learning frameworks such as Pytorch or Tensorflow (we use Pytorch + Lightning)Strong knowledge of statistics and machine learning
Highly effective verbal and written communication skills



Bonus points:

4+ years of ML/DS and generalist engineering experience over a diversity of products
A risk-aware, investor’s mindset (seeking out and placing bets on a portfolio of projects)
Experience working with temporal holdout sets in machine learning or statistical models (e.g. time series forecasts)
A public portfolio of full-stack data products, demos, or blog posts 



More About Us:

Want to learn more about us and how we are revolutionizing the home buying and selling process? Learn more about us on our website, check out our profile on The Muse to learn more about our culture from our team members, or read our blog posts to hear about the work we are doing.


We Offer the Following Benefits and Perks:
- Full medical, dental, and vision with optional 70% coverage for dependents
- Flexible vacation policy
- Generous parental leave
- Paid time off to volunteer
Please note that these benefits and perks are available only to Full Time team members and do not apply to contract roles.

Opendoor Values Openness:

Our team celebrates our diverse backgrounds. We believe that being open about who we are and what we do allows us to be better. Individuals seeking employment at Opendoor are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or other protected status under all applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. For California residents: for more information about the categories of personal information that we collect for recruiting purposes, please see our personnel Privacy Policy.