Job Description:

We’re looking for a Research Scientist with a Statistics/Psychometrics focus to join the Developer Success Lab (devsuccesslab.com). The Developer Success Lab is an innovative, cross-disciplinary research team that produces public-facing applied research on how developers and technology teams learn, work and thrive. We want to change how the world understands, values, and invests in developer teams. To achieve this, we tackle far-reaching, meaningful questions at the intersection of the social and behavioral sciences and software research.
 

About this role
 

As a Principal Research Scientist, you will work directly with the VP of Research and other Research Scientists to design, implement, analyze and publish research studies. In this role, you will primarily be responsible for expert statistical consulting across our lab’s portfolio of projects. You will lead advanced analysis & modeling (e.g. multilevel growth modeling, conditional process analysis, factor analysis) across a plethora of complex data, ranging from social science survey data to large-scale, longitudinal data from the Pluralsight Skills and Pluralsight Flow products. 

You will work closely with our lab’s domain experts as a statistician coauthor, collaborating from beginning-to-end on original research projects to design thoughtful data collection and answer insightful causal inference questions that inform the practical recommendations we make to our public audience. As our computational expert, you will also be a strong contributor to our lab’s growing portfolio of flexible and reusable computational methods and data analysis infrastructure in R. A smaller percentage of this role will be committed to providing internal science communication, education, and collaborative teaching about statistics and evidence science. 
 

Our lab’s output ranges across a spectrum of technical and translational, from general audience research talks & white papers to publishing scientific journal articles. You will be a co-author on these deliverables, helping to lead our public research launches. Our lab aspires to raise the bar for rigorous shared methods in evidence-based software engineering. Therefore although it is not required in this role, there is a strong opportunity in this role for public speaking or public writing on our lab’s methods, e.g. attending conferences, and curating public thought leadership on how we use statistics in the real-world context of software teams and technology teams.
 

What we’re looking for 

This role is a great fit for someone who is highly motivated to have a broad impact and excited to build new standards in an emerging field. You take an action-oriented but rigorous approach to data and push others around you to do the same. You are ready and motivated to create a culture around statistical best practices. You have significant data skills to bring to domain experts, and you are looking for a highly supportive team with ambitious aspirations for impact.
 

You are excited to work on a cross-disciplinary team of scientists and practitioners: you bring a curiosity and willingness to jump into projects, you want to put findings into the hands of people who will use them, and you are curious and energetic about empowering and inspiring others to use research findings in the real world.
 

Expected Experience: 

• You hold a PhD in a quantitative methods field with a strong statistical & research design background, such as a quantitative/computational social science, causal inference, or statistics. You have at least 6+ years experience completing rigorous end-to-end statistical projects. PhDs in Computer Science, HCI or Information Science with strong statistical experience may be considered, but should have a publication record or other demonstrable experience in statistical/psychometric methods.

• You are an expert R user with specific strengths in applied, real-world data and observational causal inference. You have a strong interest and motivation to engage with the R community and wish to help your collaborators apply best-in-class methods. Experiences contributing to an open science community, e.g. in package development, reproducible methods, and/or scientific community organizing is a strong plus. 

• A commitment to kindness, a strong belief in increasing access to statistics and computational methods, and a desire for all to succeed are necessary. You share our commitment to building a learning culture, supporting the growth of teammates with diverse skillsets, and fostering vibrant research.

• Dedication to equity in measurement, ethical research, and strong ability to design psychologically safe, inclusive research which participants can trust and benefit from.

• You are highly skilled at evidence-based reasoning with human behavior as it impacts our research questions, and you have evidence of strong communication skills. While upholding standards of rigor, you also understand how to evaluate and choose research methods in the real world and can provide leadership in these choices. You think deeply about trade-offs in research, about operationalization and generalizability of research findings, have experience dealing with complexity in measurement, and can communicate thoughtfully about this to others.

• Proficiency in developer workflow data and/or individual learner data is a strong plus.
   

We don't expect any candidate to match everything in this job description: please feel welcome to apply if you believe you are a strong fit.  

 

Bring yourself. Pluralsight is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age or protected veteran status. Pluralsight will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with EEOC guidelines and applicable local law.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact ta-operations@pluralsight.com to request an accommodation.

For more information on Plurasight’s commitment to building a more diverse and inclusive workforce please review our most recent Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Report HERE.

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