Data Scientist, Borg

Salary not provided
AWS
Docker
Python
Tensorflow
C++
Rust
PyTorch
Mid and Senior level
Remote in Germany
Berlin
Borg

Building the next generation search engine for the social web

Open for applications

Borg

Building the next generation search engine for the social web

1-20 employees

AnalyticsSocial MediaCommunity

Open for applications

Salary not provided
AWS
Docker
Python
Tensorflow
C++
Rust
PyTorch
Mid and Senior level
Remote in Germany
Berlin

1-20 employees

AnalyticsSocial MediaCommunity

Company mission

To enable people to trust each other at scale.

Role

Who you are

  • 3+ years of experience modeling large, complex data sets
  • Experience designing models and evaluating the trade-offs between accuracy, efficiency, complexity, interpretability, etc
  • Appreciation for the unique challenges of networked data (in comparison to tabular, textual, or image data)
  • Comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals of data science: classification, regression, clustering, dimensionality reduction, deep learning etc
  • Advanced coding skills in Python, familiarity with Docker, AWS
  • Ability and willingness to rapidly learn advanced topics in network science and machine learning
  • Ability to prototype rapidly and also ship maintainable, production-ready code
  • A growth mindset, being able to balance long term objectives with the immediate development needs of the company and translate them into data science initiatives
  • You can communicate concepts at different levels of complexity i.e. you can change your explanation depending on the audience. You think of what information the person you are talking to needs and you frame it in the context useful to them
  • You're highly collaborative with strong verbal and written communication skills
  • You enjoy writing documentation and understand why it's valuable

Desirable

  • BS/MS/Ph.D. in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field
  • Familiar with advanced topics in network science or graph ML: advanced community detection algorithms (local/overlapping/fuzzy/hierarchical/statistical inference), community search, graph diffusions, spreading processes, vertex similarity, hypergraphs, mesoscale structure (assortative, core-periphery, etc.), k-cores/trusses/cliques, graph signal processing, graph neural networks (GNNs), geometric deep learning, heterogeneous or multilayer graphs
  • Familiarity with other relevant topics: data visualization (especially graph visualization), NLP (Transformers, LLMs, contrastive models, sentence embeddings, topic modeling, finetuning, etc), recommender systems, fairness/bias in ML, graph databases, advanced clustering (nonlinear dimensionality reduction, topological manifold learning), etc
  • Knowledge of the fundamentals of modern deep learning, including experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc
  • Experience building production-ready recommender systems
  • Comfortable with seeking out and reading the latest research papers in relevant fields
  • Experience implementing algorithms at a low level from scratch in C++, Rust, etc
  • Interest in sociology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, game theory, or related fields
  • Interest in design, user experience, or related fields
  • Deep familiarity with some online cultures, sub-cultures, memes, etc. and a power user of some social media platforms

What the job involves

  • In this role you will work on a small, but extremely dynamic and competent data science team
  • This is one of those rare places where you will be pushed to your limits and learn a lot in short time
  • As a data scientist, you will work with other data scientists to make the most accurate understanding of everyone's public digital footprint
  • You will be discovering, defining, and working on problems that nobody has solved before with some of the smartest people
  • You can find interesting problems and propose to work on them as long as they fit within the larger scope of research and business goals of the organization
  • You will have freedom in choosing how to approach solving problems you are working on and which technologies to use. If you can show that it's the best way to solve the problem at hand, all tradeoffs considered, you can use it
  • Envision, implement, and validate algorithms that aggregate complex, textual and graphical data into comprehensible descriptions of social networks
  • Planning and coordination of data modeling & acquisition strategy, feature releases
  • Close cooperation with the product team in translating planned product features into algorithms/metrics and vice versa
  • Close cooperation with the development team in shaping our IT strategy and ensuring the robustness of production algorithms
  • As a DS evangelist, you will familiarize other team members with our models to the extent and level of detail necessary for them

Application process

  • We hire for ability, not credentials. You will notice that this is reflected in our recruiting process. The process is designed to test your ability to solve problems that you will face in the role you are applying for. There won’t be any brain teasers or anything else unrelated to what the job will be
  • We invest tens of hours carefully crafting descriptions and the corresponding questions for each role. We spend so much time because we found this to be a good investment. These ads and their corresponding questions have proven to be an excellent filter. Make sure not to skip any questions – they are (by far) the most important part of the application
  • If we like your answers, we will schedule the first interview. There are typically three interviews (+/-1) in total. For some roles, you may receive a take-home task that should take about 2-3 hours to complete. After that, we will ask you to work with us on a trial project for a week. We will pay you for this project. The idea is that you get to experience what it is like to work on our team, and we get a chance to experience what it would be like to have you as a colleague. Within that week, we will either make you an offer or let you know this is not a fit
  • We keep this process to 2-3 weeks from when we get in touch with you

Our take

PageRank is the algorithm used by Google to determine which pages return the most relevant, important, and high quality results for a given search. Borg Collective is looking to develop something similar, but for people: an algorithm that ranks social media profiles so users know who to trust online.

We can see the progress Borg Collective has made already with Hive, an online tool that users can use to identify Twitter communities using a keyword, and see who among the key profiles involved holds the greatest attention and sway. Hive’s touted as a demo of what’s in the Borg Collective pipeline.

Whilst using algorithms to identify clusters of online communities is nothing new in the research community, it’s a tool that hasn’t really been commercially released. Not only would it serve as a buzzy tonic for the current hot-button topic of the credibility issue on social media, it would also work neatly alongside recent marketing tech efforts to help link up brands with the most valuable online influencers. So it will certainly be interesting to see what's in store for Borg Collective and Hive next.

Steph headshot

Steph

Company Specialist

Insights

Some candidates hear
back within 2 weeks

17% female employees

Company

Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)

Aug 2022

$2.7m

CONVERTIBLE

Dec 2021

$1.3m

CONVERTIBLE

Total funding: $5.6m

Company benefits

  • Fully remote
  • Mostly asynchronous
  • Work from wherever you want
  • 27 holidays
  • Paid sick days
  • Depending on your location and setup, you can join us as a full-time contractor, or we can employ you in your country and take care of benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans.

Company values

  • We are a mission-driven organization
  • Working at Borg can give a sense of satisfaction and meaning
  • No micromanagement but lots of feedback and coaching

Company HQ

Mitte, Berlin, Germany

Leadership

Maciek Laskus

(Founder)

Salary benchmarks

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Diversity & Inclusion at Borg

  • We are a fully remote team and hire worldwide
  • Our team members come from and live in America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia

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