At HopSkipDrive, our goal is to create opportunity for all through mobility. 

We’re a technology company that solves complex transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, equity, and care. Through our marketplace, we connect kids, older adults, or anyone needing extra support to highly-vetted caregivers on wheels. Through our software and advisory services, we solve the biggest transportation challenges facing schools and school districts around the country. 

Founded by three moms as a solution to their own transportation challenges, we’ve now completed more than 3.3 million rides and operate across over 13 states across the country. We continue to expand at a rapid pace, making the Inc. 5000 list four times, as well as the Deloitte 500 Fast-Growing Technology list. HopSkipDrive is a Series D company and has raised $100M in funding to date.

Your role: 

You will leverage organizational data to generate meaningful insights that improve the experiences of our users, while also being able to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of core business functions. One key requirement will be the specification, testing, validation, and maintenance of predictive and prescriptive models in both the product and the organizational spaces. 

The ideal candidate will be adept at diving deeply into business problems, understanding where opportunities exist for advanced analytics, and injecting fully-scoped and tested models into our product space and business. Candidates should have a bottomless curiosity, a keen desire to solve real problems, ability to translate complex concepts to non-technical stakeholders, and willingness to master unfamiliar domains and methods. You think like a business owner. You are excited to jump in and help your teammates, and you’re always thinking of ways to constructively challenge the status quo and improve the business. You are an A+ player who is inspired by the mission we are pursuing and by the opportunity to define a new category in an incredibly fast-moving market. You are a creative problem solver, who strives for excellence, but knows how to move from explore to exploit. You are excited to bring your best everyday, to learn from those around you and to push hard while contributing to our powerful vision of positively impacting kids’ lives everyday.

At HopSkipDrive, we know that to tackle our toughest challenges, we need different approaches, unique perspectives, and new ways of thinking.  We are building a team of creative problem-solvers from many different backgrounds.

 

What you’ll do: 

  • Combine DS strategies, programming expertise, and theoretical understanding of techniques to deliver advanced ML solutions for problem solving across the enterprise.
  • Scope, explore, specify, test, and deploy, and observe accurate and stable models into production environments.  
  • Utilize modern, open-source data scientific workflows (SQL, R/Python, Github) to create highly accurate or explainable predictive/prescriptive models.
  • Own models in production and re-train when necessary
  • Demonstrate a product mindset to deliver portable components that can be deployed into existing products OR converted into stand-alone data products
  • Partner closely with BI, Engineering, Product Management, DevOps, and business stakeholders to create business-aligned, stable workflows.
  • Communicate results and model specifications to appropriate stakeholders.
  • Mentor, train, and assist aspiring data science professionals

 

Skills and Experience:

  • 5+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying production quality predictive and/or prescriptive models. Will accept substitution of up to 2 years for relevant educational experience. 
  • Strong data acquisition skills using SQL in modern technical stacks (PostGres, AWS, Snowflake)
  • 5+ years working with open source data science toolkits including Python (numpy, pandas, scikit, PySpark) or R (Tidyverse/Tidymodels). Strong preference for candidates who can capably translate between Python and R. Will accept substitution of up to 2 years for relevant educational experience. 
  • 2+ years experience in deploying models to production environments through APIs, or batch processes
  • 3+ years experience in at least TWO of the following DS methods 
    • Supervised and Unsupervised ML (regression, classification, etc.)
    • Econometric modeling (e.g.  time-to-event/survival analysis)
    • Reinforcement learning (e.g multiarm bandits for price or intervention optimization)
    • Operations research (e.g. combinatorial optimization/ traveling salesman, linear programming)
  • Demonstrated experience with reproducible data science environments including creation of virtual environments, library management, and version control using Git/Github
  • Demonstrated experience writing up results using literate programming workflows (Quarto preferred).

 

Nice to have experience: 

  • Masters or PhD in Data Science, Operations Research, Applied Math, Machine Learning, Computer Science, AI, Statistics, Engineering, or similar
  • Experience with back end model deployment and monitoring (MLOPS) using cloud ecosystems (Google, AWS, Snowflake).
  • Experience with “big data” solutions requiring cloud-infrastructure or distributed compute
  • Experience building in, and potentially standing up, cloud-based data science environments (Posit Workbench, DataBricks, Sagemaker)
  • Experience doing data science work in the transportation, logistics, or delivery spaces
  • Experience with Transformers for analyzing large sequences of data

 

Our Investment In You

We want you to be an owner in our company and share in executing our vision, so every full-time employee has equity. In addition, we offer competitive market comp, flexible vacation, FSA, medical, dental and vision, 401(k), and an opportunity to work for a uniquely positioned, VC-backed company in a hugely attractive space with significant upside potential. HopSkipDrive is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The base salary range for this role is $140,000 to $155,000. Final compensation for this role will be determined by several factors such as a candidate’s relevant work experience, skill set and specific work location. The total compensation package for this role also includes equity stock options.

 

HopSkipDrive is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected class.

* This role will be fully remote in one of the following states AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI**

Apply for this Job

* Required
resume chosen  
Dropbox Google Drive
(File types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf)
Cancel
cover_letter chosen  
Dropbox Google Drive
(File types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf)
Cancel

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in HopSkipDrive’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.

Enter the verification code sent to to confirm you are not a robot, then submit your application.

This application was flagged as potential bot traffic. To resubmit your application, turn off any VPNs, clear the browser's cache and cookies, or try another browser. If you still can't submit it, contact our support team through the help center.