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Motionworks AI Inc. · 4 hours ago

Senior Data Scientist - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA (Little Italy)

San Diego, CA

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$200K/yr - $240K/yr

8+ years exp

Motionworks AI Inc. is a leader in population intelligence, providing insights on how the total population moves throughout the physical world. The Senior Data Scientist will lead methodology development for population modeling systems, designing and validating statistical models to derive population-level insights from location data.

Location Based ServicesMarket ResearchOutdoor AdvertisingSoftwareTourism

No H1B

Responsibilities

Designing and validating Bayesian inference models to extrapolate observed location data to unobserved populations

Developing methods to distinguish personal travel from commercial delivery patterns in ambiguous GPS traces

Building statistical frameworks for handling varying data quality and penetration rates across geographies

Creating defensible models for trip purpose inference, stay-point detection, and behavioral segmentation

Writing concise technical documentation to explain methodology to internal stakeholders and clients

Prototyping approaches that engineering teams can translate into production pipelines (Python, SQL, or other cloud-native tools)

Recommending new data acquisitions and validation techniques to improve model performance

Qualification

Bayesian inference expertiseStatistical modelingPython NumPyPython pandasSQL for data explorationLarge-scale location dataDomain intuitionGIS/geospatial analysisTravel behavior conceptsTechnical documentation

Required

8-10 years of applied experience working with large-scale location, mobility, or behavioral data (OR Master's/PhD + demonstrated applied work in transportation/retail analytics)

Proven experience at scale with messy, real-world datasets—hundreds of millions of records, imperfect data quality, sparse observations

Deep statistical foundations: Can derive likelihood functions, explain model assumptions, defend methodological choices with mathematical rigor

Bayesian inference expertise: Experience with hierarchical models, prior specification, and uncertainty quantification—critical for extrapolating from sparse observations to population-level insights and handling varying data quality across geographies

Strong technical skills: Python (NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn, statsmodels, PyMC or similar) and SQL for complex queries and data exploration in BigQuery/Spark environments

Domain intuition: Understanding of how people move through cities—even if you discover patterns empirically, you should recognize when results align with or contradict transportation theory

Preferred

Experience at a technology company working on mobility/logistics problems at global scale

Familiarity with travel behavior concepts (trip chaining, mode choice, origin-destination modeling)

GIS/geospatial analysis skills (PostGIS, H3, spatial joins)

Exposure to travel survey data (NHTS, household travel surveys)

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

First year of employment gives two weeks of PTO, four weeks thereafter

14 holidays and flex holidays

401(k) plan

Employee equity

Company

Motionworks AI Inc.

Motionworks is the trusted population intelligence expert that empowers customers with privacy-compliant, innovative data solutions to help them make smarter and more confident decisions.

Founded in 2017

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

11-50 employees