Social Scientist, Performance (Durham, NC)

Location:

Durham, NC

October 14, 2026

Hive Science is a tech start-up whose technologies are in use by many of the world’s largest brands including Land Rover, Edward Jones & numerous other fortune 500 brands. The Hive platform is delivering novel intelligence at the intersection of quantitative social psychology, behavioral science & AI/ML to accelerate & transform how work is done. We’re looking for someone to join our team and get on board this rocket ship with us..

About the role:

What you'll do

Design and scale experimentation

Design rigorous experiments for Hive products, including holdouts, back-tests, and A/B, geo and incrementality tests with customers and partners.
Build repeatable experimentation frameworks, so each new product or partner can be tested quickly and consistently.
Maintain and extend Hive's validation standards, covering out-of-sample performance, calibration, stability and uncertainty.
Work with Hive's scientists to keep results scientifically meaningful as well as statistically significant.
Help set the scientific bar for when a product is ready to ship.

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Work with real-world campaign and media data

Analyze campaign performance data such as impressions, reach, frequency, CTR, conversions, CPA and ROAS.
Design tests that account for how ad platforms actually work: auction dynamics, delivery optimization, pacing, audience overlap, and non-random delivery that can confound naive comparisons.
Work with large, messy real-world datasets, and know which questions the data can and can't answer.

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Make it commercially useful

Design experiments that answer the questions customers, partners and procurement teams actually ask.
Turn results into case studies, benchmarks and proof points for commercial teams.
Make pragmatic tradeoffs among rigor, cost, speed and what's feasible in live campaigns.
Work with Product to prioritize the experimental work that most strengthens Hive's differentiation.
Communicate assumptions, uncertainty and limitations clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

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Use AI as a force multiplier

Use Claude Code and other AI tools daily to accelerate coding, analysis, diagnostics and documentation.
Independently validate AI-generated code, assumptions and interpretations, and help set team standards for reproducible AI-assisted science.

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Requirements:

Exceptional experimental design skills. You've designed and run many experiments, in the field and in live commercial settings, and know how to get clean answers from messy real-world conditions.
Deep expertise in causal inference, including randomized experiments, quasi-experimental methods and incrementality measurement.
Hands-on experience with advertising and campaign data: impressions, CTR, conversions, CPA, ROAS, attribution and lift measurement.
A working understanding of how ad platforms and delivery algorithms behave (auctions, optimization, pacing, targeting) and how they bias experimental results.
Commercial experience in ad tech, marketing measurement, media, consumer intelligence, market research or consumer-facing products.
Strong experience validating predictive or modeled data: calibration, generalization, uncertainty and bias.
Advanced quantitative training (PhD or equivalent experience) in a field such as social or quantitative psychology, computational social science, statistics, economics, quantitative marketing or a related discipline.
An instinct for the difference between a model that predicts well and one whose outputs mean what they claim to.
Experience with geographic or multilevel data is a plus.
Strong coding in Python and/or R, with comfort working directly with large datasets.
Fluency with Claude Code, including an understanding of AI failure modes and how to verify output.
The ability to explain complex methods simply and persuasively to commercial audiences.

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Backgrounds that could be a strong fit
We care more about experimental rigor, commercial judgment and creativity than about a specific discipline. Strong candidates might come from marketing science, ad measurement, experimentation teams at ad platforms or tech companies, media agencies, behavioral science, quantitative social science, economics or market research.

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Additional Information:

Location: Hybrid, 3 days a week in our Durham office. You must live within commuting distance.
Employment type: Full-time.
Work authorization: You must have an existing right to work in the US. We're not able to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Thank you for your interest in our company.

We'll review your resume asap and reach out if you're a good fit.

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