Head of Data

Role Overview 

The primary mission of the Head of Data (Director+) is to drive the data vision for the organization, creating a sustainable data culture and practice for Merit America to analyze program outcomes, make data-driven decisions, and build digital experiences that serve our learners and enable us to scale to helping >10x learners succeed in our programs. We aim to hire an empathetic data leader who is comfortable with ambiguity and ready to build scalable systems, implement new processes, and collaborate with teams across our organization. 

As a rapidly scaling organization, Merit America has redesigned our data infrastructure for scale and effectiveness to enable a deeper understanding of learner success. The Head of Data will be the manager and leader of our Data Science team, who will drive strategic analysis and enhancement roadmaps for our data infrastructure and operational practices to ensure learner success. This leader will create and implement a long-term data vision, including identifying key staffing needs, planning and supporting the implementation of data projects, and guiding our data architecture, with a focus on responsible data use, scaling and maintenance, and data-driven decision-making. The Head of Data will both provide high-level data strategy and dive into tactical execution details, including day-to-day mentoring with individual contributor members, recommending and rolling out new data tools, and coordinating with data engineering team members to troubleshoot ETL processes. 

The Head of Data is an exempt position and will report directly to Jen Mazzon (Chief Product Officer) and collaborate closely with the engineering team, and partner with all cross-functional departments at Merit America.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of the Head of Data will include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Champion a comprehensive data strategy and roadmap for Merit America’s learner and coach data, and lead a team to implement it. Specific elements of the strategy include the following:
• • How can we use data to add value to Merit America and drive strategic decision-making across the organization? 
  • How can we leverage data to produce proactive insights that fill essential organizational knowledge gaps?
  • How can we ensure data quality through effective data governance, etc.?
  • How can we provide everyone with the tools to make data-driven decisions?
  • What tools and processes need to be in place to support the data vision?
  • What data products should we invest in to enhance the learner experience?
  • What skills does the organization need to understand and leverage these data?

• Collaborate cross-functionally to execute the data roadmap and facilitate data input and analytics. This includes: 
  • Overseeing Hex administration to ensure org-wide access to high-quality data; promote and ensure data input best practices
  • Plan and operationalize (in collaboration with program and product teams) higher-touch methods for collecting qualitative data
  • Working with the product and engineering teams to instrument high-quality user experience data
  • Ensure data can be analyzed quickly by data users with minimal data training
  • Working with the data engineering team to build robust data processes, including ETL and data pipelines
  • Understand current tools and data structures, including Hex, and creating a future data architecture to ensure long-term stability and maintenance
  • Maintain data quality and provide transparency into data coverage and source reporting
  • Provide guidance and support for AI-driven product experiences

• Enable data-driven decision-making and benchmarking by: 
  • Partnering with the Strategy team to ensure accurate data is available to support KPI creation and data visualization
  • Collaborate with external data sources to gather and securely store usable data for our comparative monitoring and evaluation work

• Ensure data is secure within the organization and when shared with third-party partners.  Learners provide Merit America with sensitive information, so it is essential that we maintain their trust by ensuring that their data is secure. This includes developing secure data-sharing processes and enforcing data security measures
• Foster a strong data culture across Merit America by encouraging employees to make data-driven decisions, teaching responsible data practices, and facilitating conversations about data
• Lead the data team by investing time in team members. Ensure high staff morale, sense of belonging, commitment to the cause, and excitement for the work ahead

Skills and Competencies

We recognize that individuals from marginalized backgrounds, including women, people of color, and those with disabilities, are often less likely to apply when they don’t meet 100% of the job qualifications. Don’t let that be the reason you miss out on this opportunity! We want to emphasize that your unique skills, experiences, and perspectives are valuable, and we encourage you to apply if you can demonstrate many of the skills and competencies. Below are the skills that are relevant for thriving in this role:

• Ability to drive decision-making through data, leveraging skills in A/B testing, causal inference, and analytics as necessary
• Strong understanding of data architectures, governance, and models
• Ability to work with diverse stakeholders and understand business needs
• Expert people leader, mentor, and hiring manager
• Understanding of data and AI industry trends, including the impact of AI applications on data storage and usage
• Expert understanding of Data Warehousing and SQL
• Knowledge of BI tools such as Hex (preferred), Looker, PowerBI etc.
• Strong understanding of evidence-based and human-centered leadership principles and practices to drive employee engagement and effectiveness
• Ability to create and operationalize new, organization-wide systems / processes for fast-scaling organizations, and to thrive in a rapidly-changing environment
• Committed to Merit America’s mission to pave pathways to family-sustaining careers, break the poverty cycle, and create upward mobility for low-wage workers
• Demonstrated history of embodying our values, which inform our work and drive our organization's culture
• Shared sense of responsibility and ownership for our collective work in making a positive impact on the community we support, true to our value of Win & Lose Together
• Committed to continuous learning and growth in understanding and addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Passionate about fostering a workplace culture that embraces and values individual differences, aligned with our core value of inclusivity

In addition, we value the following core competencies in all candidates:

• Ability to generate and implement creative solutions and novel ways to achieve goals and/or better outcomes
• Focus on achieving quality results, consistent with Merit America’s vision, mission, and values, and including process, performance and outcome goals
• Ability to work with others toward a shared goal and contribute to the capability of the team, while participating actively and sharing the responsibility and rewards
• Willingness to look beyond the obvious to find new information, focus on continually seeking new knowledge and skills, and develop our existing capabilities
• Ability to recognize, understand and manage or influence emotions - both our own and others; and, to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically
• Ability to persistently develop and apply knowledge, skills, and resources that effectively help us adapt to change and overcome adversity

Details and logistics 

• This position is full-time: 4-day work week (Fridays are an operating day if there is a holiday closure during the week)
• Salary:  $192,000
• Location:  Remote

Our goal is to have competitive and equitable compensation.  We have a market-based compensation approach, which means we benchmark each role from reputable data sources. We compare our benchmarks against similarly sized non-profit organizations with comparable annual budgets and geographical areas. We pay the same rate for the same roles and adjust to comply with statutory mandates.