Staff Applied Scientist (Perm or Contract)

About Us

Permutives mission is to rebuild data in advertising to protect privacy. The open internet needs a sustainable foundation that funds the free & open online experiences we all rely on.

Permutives data collaboration platform uses edge technology to securely process data where it is and AI to discover signals that drive performancerespecting consumers privacy preferences while delivering outcomes for publishers & advertisers.

Our customers include some of the worlds largest media companies and advertisersincluding News Corp Warner Brothers Discovery Hearst The Guardian Sky State Street Sonos and Appleand were backed by leading investors like SoftBank Vision Fund and Y Combinator.

Engineering At Permutive

Were 30 engineers working to build an outstanding engineering culture so that everyone who joins has the opportunity and the support to do the best work of their life. Small autonomous teams are important to us and we want to empower everyone to make decisions confidently and take ownership of their impact.

We operate at a massive scale: our platform handles more requests each day than there are new tweets and Google searches and each month we serve more than 2 billion user devices. We combine our patented edge-computing capabilities and low-latency cloud services to deliver real-time customer experiences.

We think applying functional programming techniques like compositionality and type-safety is the best way to build the type of massively distributed system our platform comprises allowing us to move fast without sacrificing quality.

About the Role

Were looking for a Staff Applied Scientist to own optimisation across our platform. Youll be the domain authority on how we use data to make campaigns perform better from how audiences are composed and scored to how inventory is priced and allocated to how campaigns are tuned over their lifetime.

The scope is broad: campaign optimisation audience quality modelling lookalike improvement and measurement all fall within your remit. Youll work across teams identifying which problems to solve designing the approaches and owning the models through to production.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role with broad scope and real autonomy. Youll operate across the full platform with the freedom to identify the highest-leverage problems and design the approaches to solve them. Youll shape what we build and have a seat at the table when we make product and strategy decisions.

What youll be doing

• Design and build models for campaign optimisation working across metrics like CTR CPA and ROAS using publisher-side signals (cohort membership contextual data engagement) combined with advertiser outcome data.

• Develop approaches to inventory allocation that account for audience quality placement value and supply dynamics.

• Own your models end-to-end from conception through production monitoring. Youll work closely with specialist engineers who integrate models into our high-throughput Scala services SDKs and data pipelines you own the logic they own the infrastructure with shared accountability for outcomes.

• Influence product direction by identifying opportunities framing feasibility and bringing evidence to roadmap decisions.

• Run experiments and prototypes to validate ideas quickly then evolve the best ones into production systems.

What youll need

Essential:

• Direct experience with optimisation or bidding systems in programmatic advertising within a DSP SSP ad server or comparable platform. You understand the mechanics of how campaigns are priced paced and optimised in practice.

• Strong applied ML and statistical foundations. You can design evaluate and iterate on models and you know when a heuristic beats a neural network.

• Production ML experience. Youve built models that run in real systems not just notebooks. You understand latency data freshness feedback loops and the gap between offline evaluation and online performance.

• Fluency with the programmatic ecosystem bid requests win notifications the signals available at decision time and the differences between publisher-side and buy-side data.

• Strong communication skills. You can explain your thinking to engineers product managers and leadership and youre comfortable advocating for a technical direction.

Wed be particularly excited if you have one or more of the below

• Experience with cross-publisher or cross-supply optimisation.

• Familiarity with privacy-constrained environments cohort-based targeting clean rooms working without user-level identifiers.

Why this role

• Youre designing optimisation systems for a platform with a genuinely unusual position deep publisher-side data privacy-first architecture and direct activation through SSPs and ad servers. The modelling problems are novel.

• Permutive sits right on the supply so youll have access to signals that nobody in the bid stream sees engagement content behavioural patterns from inside the publisher.

• Small team high ownership direct impact. No layers between your work and the product.

What were offering

We take a structured objective approach to salary-setting which is based on marketing information our compensation strategy and your experience and capability assessed through our interview process. For a typical candidate who meets our requirements we pay a base salary of 180000 - 204000.

Note: Were open to hiring someone on a permanent basis OR contract for this position. Please let us know on the application form which youre interested in.

Permutive Benefits

• In this together: As a full-time employee youll become a shareholder with stock options sharing in our collective success.

• Family Comes First: Primary caregivers receive up to 6 months of fully paid leave and secondary caregivers receive 3 months of fully paid leave to bond with their little ones.

• Your Time Your Way: Flexible hours let you fit work around your life whether its hitting the gym meditating or handling family needs.

• Upgraded Workspace: A 350 budget helps you create the perfect home office setup.

• Recharge & Refocus: Unlimited paid time off (with a minimum of 25 days public holidays) ensures you get the rest you need.

• Grow with Us: Ongoing training and development opportunities fuel your career aspirations.

• Mental Health Matters: We prioritise your well-being with free access to Spill our mental health partner.

• Comprehensive Care: Enjoy virtual GP visits healthcare services work-life consultations.

• Secure your future: Our pension plan with Penfold helps you secure your financial future (employer contributes 3% employee contributes 5%).

Work Your Way

Permutive trusts you to manage your time and deliver results. Our hybrid model allows you to choose where you work best whether in your own productive space or our London (Farringdon) or New York (Union Square) offices. That said none of us work alone; we are part of a team.

To foster collaboration and connection teams in these locations come together in person at least once a week and are encouraged to benefit from being in our offices to meet with teams more often. Commercial and customer-facing teams are encouraged to embrace in-person interactions to build lasting relationships with clients and colleagues.

Every Permutive employee gets together in person at the companys Annual Kick Off for a week in February. Each years event promises to be an exciting opportunity for us to come together reconnect with colleagues and align on our shared vision for the year ahead.

Diversity Equity & Inclusion

At Permutive were taking a thoughtful intersectional long-term approach to diversity equity & inclusion. We care deeply about creating an inclusive work environment that allows everyone to flourish and we are taking continual action to progress in that direction.

Were committed to hiring people regardless of race religion colour national origin sex (including pregnancy childbirth and related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender identity age neurodiversity status disability status or otherwise.

Required Experience:

Staff IC