Senior Staff Data Scientist, Workspace AI Foundations

$240K - $333K New York, NY, US Senior Data Scientist

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Skills & Technologies

Python

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

In accordance with Washington state law, we are highlighting our comprehensive benefits package, which is available to all eligible US based employees. Benefits for this role include:

  • Health, dental, vision, life, disability insurance
  • Retirement Benefits: 401(k) with company match
  • Paid Time Off: 20 days of vacation per year, accruing at a rate of 6.15 hours per pay period for the first five years of employment
  • Sick Time: 40 hours/year (increased to 69 hours/year for Seattle) including 5 discretionary sick days per instance
  • Maternity Leave (Short-Term Disability + Baby Bonding): 28-30 weeks
  • Baby Bonding Leave: 18 weeks
  • Holidays: 13 paid days per year

Note: By applying to this position you will have an opportunity to share your preferred working location from the following: Sunnyvale, CA, USA; Kirkland, WA, USA; New York, NY, USA.

Minimum qualifications:

  • Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, Engineering, Physics, Economics, or a related quantitative field.
  • 13 years of work experience using analytics to solve product or business problems, performing statistical analysis, and coding (e.g., Python, R, SQL) (or 10 years work experience and a Master's degree).

Preferred qualifications:

  • Master's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, Engineering, Physics, Economics, or a related quantitative field.
  • 12 years of work experience using analytics to solve product or business problems, performing statistical analysis, and coding (e.g., Python, R, SQL).

About the job

Google Workspace is a smart, simple, and secure suite of productivity apps—including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Sheets, Meet, and Chat. Designed to simplify workflows and boost team productivity, Workspace features real-time collaboration at its core, allowing information to flow freely across devices and teams so that great ideas are never lost.

We empower Workspace with AI, guiding products like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet, Chat, and beyond to become truly intelligent. We deliver actionable insights, define the critical metrics, and measure quality, pinpointing the highest-impact opportunities for the entire organization.

As a Staff/Senior Staff Product Data Scientist on the Workspace GenAI Foundations team, you will act as a technical leader and strategic advisor at the intersection of product strategy, model evaluation, and data architecture across our horizontal AI pillars—spanning Agentic Ecosystems, AI Platform, Workspace Intelligence, and Abuse & Safety Protections. Partnering closely with senior Product, Engineering, and Research leaders across Workspace and DeepMind, you will pioneer the measurement frameworks, experimentation methodologies, and foundational data pipelines that shape AI-powered productivity and agentic experiences for over 3 billion users.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $240000 - $333000 (USD) + 25% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.Responsibilities

  • Lead horizontal metric and evaluation frameworks that quantify engagement, productivity gains, and end-to-end system quality across GenAI models, agentic tooling, context grounding, and safety.
  • Deliver clear, executive-ready insights and recommendations that guide product roadmaps, organizational transitions, and resource allocation.
  • Work on challenges across behavioral, telemetry, and evaluation datasets to identify user adoption, quality or reliability gaps, latency/cost trade-offs, and new methodologies to improve performance.
  • Define upstream logging and telemetry standards, design scalable data models and ETL pipelines, and build unified semantic layers and self-serve analytics that connect data across Workspace domains.
  • Drive experimentation, observational causal inference, and rigorous model evaluations—leveraging AI models/tools as well as human and automated rating systems.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form.

Salary Context

This $240K-$333K range is above the 75th percentile for Data Scientist roles in our dataset (median: $164K across 177 roles with salary data).

View full Data Scientist salary data →

Role Details

Company Google
Title Senior Staff Data Scientist, Workspace AI Foundations
Location New York, NY, US
Category Data Scientist
Experience Senior
Salary $240K - $333K
Remote No

About This Role

Data Scientists extract insights and build predictive models from data. In the AI era, many roles now include LLM-powered analytics, automated reporting, and integration with generative AI tools. The role has evolved from 'the person who runs SQL queries' to 'the person who builds AI-powered data products.'

Modern data science roles fall into two camps: analytics-focused (insights, dashboards, experimentation) and ML-focused (building predictive models, recommendation systems, NLP features). The best data scientists can operate in both modes. The AI shift means that even analytics-focused roles now involve building automated insight pipelines using LLMs, going well beyond one-off reports.

Across the 10,827 AI roles we're tracking, Data Scientist positions make up 4% of the market. At Google, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Data Scientist roles remain in high demand, though the definition keeps shifting. Companies increasingly want candidates who can bridge traditional statistics with modern ML and LLM capabilities. The 'pure insights' data scientist role is consolidating into analytics engineering, while the 'build models' data scientist role is merging with ML engineering.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week includes: analyzing experiment results for a product feature launch, building a predictive model for customer churn, creating an automated reporting pipeline using LLM-powered summarization, presenting insights to stakeholders, and cleaning data (always cleaning data). The ratio of analysis to engineering varies by company, but expect both.

Data Scientist roles remain in high demand, though the definition keeps shifting. Companies increasingly want candidates who can bridge traditional statistics with modern ML and LLM capabilities. The 'pure insights' data scientist role is consolidating into analytics engineering, while the 'build models' data scientist role is merging with ML engineering.

Skills Required

Python (19% of roles)

Python, SQL, and statistical modeling are the foundation. Increasingly, roles want experience with LLMs for data analysis, automated insight generation, and building AI-powered data products. Familiarity with cloud data platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks) and ML frameworks (scikit-learn, PyTorch) covers most job requirements.

Experimentation design and causal inference are underrated skills that separate strong candidates. Companies care about whether their product changes cause improvements, and can distinguish causation from correlation. A/B testing methodology, Bayesian statistics, and the ability to communicate uncertainty to non-technical stakeholders are high-value skills.

Good postings specify the data stack, the types of problems you'll work on, and the team structure. Look for companies that differentiate between analytics and ML data science. Vague 'data scientist' postings that list every skill under the sun usually mean the company doesn't know what they need.

Compensation Benchmarks

Data Scientist roles pay a median of $190,000 based on 1,566 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $230,000. This role's midpoint ($286K) sits 51% above the category median. Disclosed range: $240K to $333K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,480. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,111. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($266,050) and AI Engineering Manager ($253,461). By seniority level: Entry: $112,320; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $230,000; Director: $272,300; VP: $236,450.

Google AI Hiring

Google has 229 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Agent Developer, Research Engineer, AI Software Engineer. Positions span New York, NY, US, Kirkland, WA, US, Sunnyvale, CA, US. Compensation range: $150K - $427K.

Location Context

AI roles in New York pay a median of $221,000 across 3,262 tracked positions. That's 4% above the national median.

Career Path

Common paths into Data Scientist roles include Data Analyst, Statistician, Quantitative Researcher.

From here, career progression typically leads toward Senior Data Scientist, ML Engineer, AI Product Manager.

Start with statistics and SQL. Build a real analysis project on public data that demonstrates insight generation alongside model building. The market values data scientists who can communicate findings clearly to business stakeholders. If you want to move toward ML engineering, invest in software engineering fundamentals and production deployment skills.

What to Expect in Interviews

Interviews combine statistics, coding, and business acumen. SQL is almost always tested, often with complex joins and window functions. Expect a case study round where you're given a business problem and asked to design an analysis plan. Coding rounds focus on pandas, statistical modeling, and visualization. The strongest differentiator is how well you communicate insights to non-technical stakeholders during presentation rounds.

When evaluating opportunities: Good postings specify the data stack, the types of problems you'll work on, and the team structure. Look for companies that differentiate between analytics and ML data science. Vague 'data scientist' postings that list every skill under the sun usually mean the company doesn't know what they need.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 10,827 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 122 entry-level, 5,256 mid-level, 3,922 senior, and 1,527 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (665 positions). The remaining 10,097 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $213,480. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,111. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($266,050 median, 70 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($253,461 median, 58 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 476 roles).

Data Scientist roles remain in high demand, though the definition keeps shifting. Companies increasingly want candidates who can bridge traditional statistics with modern ML and LLM capabilities. The 'pure insights' data scientist role is consolidating into analytics engineering, while the 'build models' data scientist role is merging with ML engineering.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 10,827 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (8,288), AI Software Engineer (548), AI Product Manager (471). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (122) are outnumbered by mid-level (5,256) and senior (3,922) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,527 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (665 positions), with 10,097 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,480. Top-quartile roles start at $264,111, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $266,050 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,093 postings), Aws (1,100 postings), Azure (910 postings), Rag (863 postings), Gcp (680 postings), Pytorch (549 postings), Claude (532 postings), Kubernetes (511 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 1,566 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for Data Scientist positions is $190,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python, SQL, and statistical modeling are the foundation. Increasingly, roles want experience with LLMs for data analysis, automated insight generation, and building AI-powered data products. Familiarity with cloud data platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks) and ML frameworks (scikit-learn, PyTorch) covers most job requirements.
About 6% of the 10,827 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Google is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from Data Scientist positions include Senior Data Scientist, ML Engineer, AI Product Manager. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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