New York City, NYremote

Salary
$140,000–$190,000
Posted
Aug 18, 2026
Location
New York City, NY
Last confirmed open
Sep 24, 2026

What this job asks for AI summary

This role owns the unit economics of network costs at a wireless carrier, building optimization models and cost analytics that determine the most efficient plan configuration across the subscriber base. The work spans formulating and solving optimization problems, validating models against carrier invoices, forecasting network spend, and moving recommendations into automated production workflows. It suits a decision-science practitioner with strong SQL and Python skills and real experience driving financially impactful recommendations.

Senior level · 4+ years · Remote · Full-time

Pay in the description: $140,000–$190,000

Quick apply — this platform usually takes a CV and a few fields.

Must have (3)
SQLPythonLLMs
Nice to have (3)
dbtRedshiftDagster or Airflow

“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.

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 5,100 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (data scientists). range 3,050–7,700

Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.

What won't set you apart
Python88%SQL72%

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 Aug 20, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.

Why we read it this way (8)

The role is titled 'Data Scientist, Cost Optimization' but the posting explicitly frames it as 'decision science more than machine learning,' with optimization modeling, cost analytics, and financial validation as the primary work — making 15-2031 (Operations Research Analysts) a genuine runner-up to 15-2051 (Data Scientists).

Optimization modeling (linear programming, cost modeling, marginal-cost analysis) is listed under Requirements with firm language; it is captured as a required skill even though no single named tool is specified.

dbt and Redshift appear in the responsibilities narrative ('Design, build, and maintain the underlying data models using dbt, Redshift') rather than under a hard-requirements heading, so they are marked preferred. dbt is also mentioned under Nice to Have, reinforcing this treatment.

Demonstrated use of AI/LLMs in day-to-day workflow is explicitly required; captured as LLMs per the canonical naming convention.

Dagster and Airflow appear together under Nice to Have as interchangeable orchestrator options; emitted as one preferred skill with Airflow as an alternative.

No work location or metro is specified in the posting; the role appears to be remote or location-flexible based on the absence of any office requirement.

Telecom/MVNO domain experience and FinOps/cloud cost management are listed under Nice to Have and are omitted from the skills list as they name domains rather than concrete named technologies.

Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): optimization modeling.

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