Principal Decision Scientist

Principal Decision Scientist At Instructure, we believe in the power of people to grow and succeed throughout their lives. Our goal is to amplify that power by creating intuitive products that simplify learning and personal development, facilitate meaningful relationships, and inspire people to go further in their education and careers. We do this by giving smart, creative, passionate people opportunities to create awesome. And that's where you come in: The Principal Decision Scientist at Instructure will play a key role in elevating how data informs strategic decisions across the organization in an AI first era. As a technical leader within our newly formed Decision Science group, you will partner closely with product, engineering, marketing, and executive leadership to identify high-impact opportunities, design rigorous experimentation frameworks, and deliver predictive insights that drive measurable business value across the Canvas LMS and broader Instructure ecosystem. This is a high-visibility opportunity to help build and shape a modern decision science capability at scale. You will help establish best practices for experimentation, causal analysis, and advanced analytics while mentoring other data scientists and analysts and influencing how data guides product innovation and business growth. Impact of the Role As a Principal Decision Scientist, you will help define how data informs decisions across Instructure. You will play a foundational role in shaping the company’s decision science capabilities—driving experimentation, influencing product strategy, providing recommendations to further business outcomes and unlocking the value of Instructure’s data to power innovation across the learning ecosystem. In this role, you will: - Drive business impact through data-driven insights - Identify high-value opportunities to improve product adoption, customer engagement, and revenue growth through advanced analytics and predictive modeling - Default to AI first thinking to design analysis, recommend solutions, elevate standards/throughput on the team - Lead experimentation and causal analysis - Design and execute rigorous A/B tests and causal inference studies to evaluate the impact of new product features, marketing strategies, and operational initiatives - Influence product and business strategy - Partner with product managers, engineers, marketing leaders, and executives to translate complex business questions into analytical approaches that inform strategic decisions - Deliver end-to-end analytical solutions - Own the full lifecycle of analytical initiatives—from identifying opportunities and building models to partnering with business teams to drive adoption and measurable impact - Establish decision science best practices - Serve as a technical leader within the Decision Science organization by defining standards for experimentation, modeling, and analytical rigor - Mentor and elevate the analytics community - Guide and mentor data scientists and analysts across the organization by demonstrating best practices in technical execution and business partnership - Advance analytics and AI capabilities - Explore emerging analytics and AI technologies to unlock new insights and help evolve Instructure’s data and decision-making capabilities - Communicate insights clearly and effectively - Translate complex analytical findings into actionable recommendations for both technical and non-technical stakeholders What you will need to know / have - PhD or Master's degree in Statistics, Computer Science, Economics, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research, or a related quantitative field - 8+ years of experience in data science, analytics, or a related discipline with a track record of delivering measurable business impact - Expertise in statistical modeling, machine learning, causal inference, and experimental design (A/B testing) - Deep familiarity with AI tooling (Claude/ChatGPT/Glean) to improve throughput ... (truncated, view full listing at source)