Data Scientist, Ads

About SmartNews

SmartNews is a leading global information and news discovery company dedicated to delivering quality information to the people who need it. Thanks to our unique machine-learning technology and relationships with more than 3,000 global publisher partners, we provide news that matters to millions of users.

Founded in 2012 in Tokyo, SmartNews also has offices in Osaka (Kansai Office), Palo Alto, New York and Singapore.

If you share our vision and are passionate about our mission, we encourage you to apply!

The Team

In SmartNews, data science accelerates growth through scientific decision-making and rapid iteration. The Ads Data Science team owns the evolution of our advertising ecosystem across both JP and US markets, centering our work on product analytics, experimentation, and data enablement.

We drive strategic clarity through advanced analytics and A/B testing—maximizing revenue for business partners while safeguarding the core user experience. To scale our impact, we also build and maintain the analytical data pipelines and self-serve tooling that empower partner teams across SmartNews to seamlessly leverage ad data.

Your Mission

As a Data Scientist on the Ads team, your mission is to drive ad product evolution through end-to-end decision science. Working closely with Product Managers, Engineers, and Business partners in a fast-paced environment, you will own projects from inception to execution—turning high-level strategy into precise data representations, conducting rigorous analysis, and communicating high-impact insights that guide critical business choices.

What You Will Do

• Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Engineers, and Business stakeholders across JP and US teams to translate high-level ad strategy into precise hypotheses and analytical frameworks.
• Uncover Growth Opportunities: Perform exploratory analysis and impact-size estimation on ad ecosystem data to discover high-value opportunities that balance ad revenue with core user experience.
• Design & Evaluate Experiments: Lead end-to-end A/B testing and quasi-experimental evaluations (including causal inference for non-testable features) to measure product performance and user impact.
• Build Data Enablement & Pipelines: Design domain-specific analytical data pipelines, key performance metrics, and self-serve dashboards that empower partner teams to easily leverage ad data.
• Deliver Strategic Recommendations: Synthesize complex data into actionable, executive-ready insights that guide ad product roadmaps and commercial execution.

Minimum requirements

• Advanced level SQL (Trino, hive, rds, etc.)
• Programming languages used for data analysis (Python, R, etc.)
• Prior experience working as an analytics lead with cross functional partners such as product/eng/sales.
• Solid knowledge of online experiment and statistical modeling
• Business or higher English
• Familiarity with online advertisement / marketing domain

Nice to have experiences/skills

• Conversational or higher Japanese (JLPT N2 certification)
• Advanced degrees in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science or analytical field
• Understanding of data engineering system (e.g. data warehousing, using data workflow tools like Airflow or dbt)
• Advanced knowledge on causal inference and mathematical modeling

Related Links

• Click here or visit our careers site to check employee interviews

Working condition

• Office Location: Tokyo

Click here or visit our careers site for more info.

Benefits available at the SmartNews Tokyo Office

• All healthcare and social insurance required by the Japanese labor law, plus annual health check
• Visa sponsorship and overseas relocation support available for eligible candidates

Click here or visit our careers site for more info about our benefits.