Less evil data scientist jobs in Seattle?

March 6, 2017 7:01 PM

Looking for a job as a data scientist in Seattle. I have a few years' experience doing this already and want to be picky about my next gig. Main criteria: in Seattle city limits, not terribly evil, decent work-life balance. More details after the jump.

What I'm looking for:

* In Seattle city limits - so not Microsoft.
* Not terribly evil - so not Amazon, Uber, most banks.
* Good work-life balance - so not Facebook or Apple (this is a problem with some otherwise ideal nonprofit employers as well)
* A place where I can keep using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and tools and work on interesting problems.

Did I mention I'm picky? But still, I know there are at least some places that satisfy most/all of the criteria above. If you have any employers to suggest, especially if you can share any direct/indirect experience with them, I'd be very grateful!

posted by splitpeasoup to Work & Money (16 answers total)

What about The Allen Institute?
posted by Altomentis at 7:08 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

I know data scientists at Facebook Seattle and they work a strict 9-5, which I would consider pretty decent work-life balance. Maybe give it another look? The benefits are fantastic as well.
posted by joan_holloway at 7:12 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have many friends at Facebook in regular engineering roles, and they don't work crazy hours for the most part. I second the suggestion to re-examine. I also know people who have worked at the Fred Hutch and it sounded like a pretty laid-back place, though I'm sure that depends on where you end up within the center.
posted by primethyme at 7:16 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

Can you elaborate on what sort of data scientist you are? My brother recently sent me some blog post of the kind that I'd normally roll my eyes at, which broke down data scientists into "people who make things consumed by machines" and "people who make things consumed by people" which was a distinction that would have simplified my last job search. Put another way, do you definitely belong in the engineering organization? Or do you definitely belong on the product side? Or do you straddle an in-between ground?

(Since we're all talking about Facebook, I think people at Facebook whose title is "data scientist" live on the product side. Their engineering doppelgängers are called "machine learning engineer", IIRC.)
posted by hoyland at 7:19 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Google has some data science folks in their Seattle (not Kirkland) office. Work-life balance is quite sane, or so I hear.
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 7:27 PM on March 6, 2017

You will find Tableau and Google along with several other firms in the Fremont neighborhood. Nice little cluster of math related development in that section of the city.
posted by ptm at 7:30 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I didn't realize people could work a 40 hour week at Facebook. I've also thought of it as a little more evil than I'd love. Maybe I should reexamine on both counts.

Allen Institute, Fred Hutch, and Google are great suggestions; would love to hear personal experiences people have had there.

Re the dichotomy hoyland mentions above, I "make things consumed by machines" for the most part.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:59 PM on March 6, 2017

Disney has offices in downtown Seattle and they're big on work-life balance. I just looked and there are some data analyst and data science positions open.
posted by erst at 9:37 PM on March 6, 2017

Indeed is hiring data scientists in downtown Seattle. Link. I think it's a pretty cool, and non-evil, place to work. (Disclaimer: I work there, although I'm neither in Seattle nor a data scientist.)
posted by teraflop at 9:48 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lyft has an office here, and you can help keep The People's Less Evil choice less evil.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:56 PM on March 6, 2017

No clue what you do but is Bellevue out of the question? Salesforce just consolidated into its new building there. By most accounts a great company culture. I guess these offices have an engineering emphasis.
posted by AnOrigamiLife at 10:00 PM on March 6, 2017

Healthdata.org might be of interest.
posted by k8t at 10:46 PM on March 6, 2017

I'm a developer rather than a data science guy, but my current workplace (RealSelf) might fit the bill. Pioneer Square area, definitely not in the same orbit as Amazon/Uber/Facebook ethics-challenge-wise, *very* reasonable work-life balance, and while I'm not sure how much machine-learning we're using so far on that side (We're working on integrating it more on the development side, at least), the social/community dynamics of what we do are absolutely fascinating to me.

Current Data Science posting
General Jobs page
- Definitely feel free to MeMail me questions, look around GlassDoor or whatever sort of workplace-review rankings you trust, etc.

We're fairly regularly adding to the data science side of things, so I'm sure between this and future positions there'll be a ready demand.

And if you do end up wanting to apply, let me know and I can see about getting your application more directly in front of someone.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:12 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

What about the health/non-profit sector? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH are both based in Seattle, plus several others I'm sure. BMGF funds a lot of non-evil tech.
posted by emd3737 at 11:30 PM on March 6, 2017

The tiny startup I work for is looking for a data scientist to join us in 3-4 months, but I'm hazy on the finer details and obviously it's not an immediate opening. It does tick your boxes for not-evil (medical training) and cutting-edge tech (VR) though! Feel free to MeMail if interested.
posted by Snacks at 12:03 AM on March 7, 2017

Tableau is a user of my company's services, and everyone I've dealt with there is incredibly smart and nice to work with. They are based in Seattle, have a great product, and if I was looking for a Seattle job they would be the first place I'd look.
posted by rmless at 8:06 AM on March 7, 2017 [1 favorite]