Senior Applied Data Scientist - Adtech ML & Bidding in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This is a high-impact senior individual contributor role at a profitable, bootstrapped company — a rare combination. No VC pressure means more stable, sustainable product decisions, but also potentially slower compensation growth compared to funded startups.
Skills you'll develop:
- Real-time bidding (RTB) and programmatic auction mechanics — extremely marketable in adtech and insurtech
- End-to-end ML ownership from data sourcing through production deployment and monitoring
- Causal modeling under feedback loops (bid shaping training data) — a niche, high-demand specialization
- ROAS-driven ML: directly connecting model output to revenue, not just accuracy metrics
Compensation: No salary is listed, which is a yellow flag. For a 5+ year applied data science role focused on paid media bidding, US market rates typically range from $150K–$200K+ annually. If you're based internationally (e.g., Brazil), compensation may be adjusted to local markets — worth clarifying upfront.
Green flags: Outcome-based culture, direct access to business stakeholders, fast ramp (day 60 ownership), and scope expansion to new verticals. The ML engineer support on the production side is a significant positive — you build the science, not the infrastructure.
Red flag to watch: "Individual contributor" with broad ownership and no mention of team growth. If you're seeking management progression, clarify the path early. The role is well-suited for deep specialists who want to own high-stakes models, not those aiming toward people leadership.
WHO ARE WE?
Launch Potato is the discovery and conversion company. We reach tens of millions of people every month through our brands, including FinanceBuzz, All About Cookies, and OnlyInYourState. We turn that attention into real outcomes for our partners, some of the world's leading companies.
Our mission: create predictable, high-value customer acquisition at scale by connecting discovery, intent, and performance across category-leading consumer brands in finance, travel, and entertainment.
We run profitable and bootstrapped, with a South Florida HQ and a remote-first team across 18 countries.
WHY JOIN US?
You own outcomes here, not tasks. We measure work by impact, not activity. The pace is real, and change is constant — the people who do best turn change into opportunity instead of waiting for it to settle. Feedback runs direct and lands with respect. Ordinary people make themselves extraordinary at Launch Potato.
YOUR ROLE
You'll build the models that decide which carrier each auto insurance shopper sees on our click wall. The goal is to send every user to the carrier most likely to convert them, so carriers see our traffic convert and raise their bids. You'll also own the buying models behind our media spend, which are held to ROAS.
Carrier conversion data (quotes, policies and acquisition cost) is now coming back to us, and you'll be the one who puts it to work in production. The hard part is the data. Outcomes land weeks or months after the click, many sessions are sparse, the same shoppers come back, and the market drifts. Our bids also decide which users we win, so the model shapes the data it learns from next.
This is a hands-on individual contributor role. You frame problems directly with the business, find your own data, build and validate the model, and stay with it through deployment and monitoring. An ML engineer works alongside you on the production side. Auto insurance takes most of your time to start, and scope broadens to other verticals over time.
We're remote first, and most of the company works East Coast hours.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
By day 60, you run our insurance marketplace media buying on your own.
By the end of your first year:
- Click wall serving that matches each user to the right carrier
- Carrier conversion data running in production models
- Automated marketplace bidding taken from proof of concept to scale
- A clear approach for repeat users and sparse sessions
- Production models that hold up through drift and changing objectives
- Output the business trusts and uses without rework
MUST HAVE
- 5+ years of hands-on applied data science with measurable business impact
- Your models drove paid media decisions: spend, bidding or ad serving. Attribution and reporting alone don't qualify.
- You built what's on your resume and can explain it down to the loss function and architecture choice, neural network fundamentals included
- You see how today's bids shape tomorrow's training data, and you've handled late labels, sparse features or drift
- You own models end to end: you find your own data, build through deployment and monitoring, and bring a point of view
- Expert Python and SQL
NICE TO HAVES
- Real ad budget spent in live auctions
- Large-scale ranking or recommendation systems
- Explaining tradeoffs to non-technical partners in plain terms
- Designing for auction feedback loops, selection bias and exploration
- Hands-on neural network work, such as embeddings of text, creative or user behavior
- AWS for data science: ECS, S3, Athena, SageMaker
- CI/CD deployment
Want to accelerate your career? Apply now!
Since day one, we've been committed to having a diverse, inclusive team and culture. We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity company. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this role fully remote or is there an office requirement?
What timezone do I need to work in for this role?
Does this role require experience specifically in insurance or adtech?
Will I be managing a team or is this purely an individual contributor role?
What is the expected ramp-up timeline for this position?
