Lead Data Scientist (AI/ML) at GatherUp
CA
$140,000–$180,000from the description
Jul 6, 2026
CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A lead-level individual contributor role focused on building and owning AI/ML systems end-to-end — from data preparation and model training through production deployment and ongoing monitoring. The work centers on NLP, anomaly detection, and generative AI applied to review and customer feedback data. It suits an experienced ML practitioner comfortable with transformer-based models, LLM fine-tuning, and RAG pipelines who can also communicate findings to non-technical stakeholders.
Senior level · 3+ years · Remote · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 1,450 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (data scientists). range 430–2,200
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $122,874 (middle half $87,544–$162,374). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The title 'Lead Data Scientist' is mapped to advertised seniority Principal (top-of-ladder framing), but the actual requirements — 3+ years minimum experience and a standard ML/NLP skill set — support a Senior band at most.
The $140K–$180K range is described as base salary + bonus; equity is also offered but not quantified.
A Master's degree in a quantitative discipline is listed only under 'Bonus points,' so no minimum degree is hard-required.
The office is in Walnut Creek, CA (within the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley CBSA); the posting states remote-friendly 'for the right candidate,' so remote is flagged true but may be conditional.
RoBERTa is listed as an example architecture alongside PyTorch in the requirements section; it is retained as a named required skill since it appears in a hard-gate block, but in practice any comparable transformer architecture would likely be accepted.
Fraud detection / trust & safety experience appears only under 'Bonus points' and is marked preferred accordingly.
Anomaly detection is called out as a core responsibility in the 'What You'll Do' section rather than a named required skill, but is included as preferred context given it is a primary job function rather than a gated technology.
This posting reads as a fully-remote role, so it was scored against the national candidate pool rather than a single metro.
Read the full posting
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