Role & Company Overview

Packback Questions is an online Curiosity Community aimed at awakening college student's fearless, relentless curiosity. Instead of providing more facts to memorize, Packback Questions is the place where students ask the big, sometimes unanswerable questions that they're truly curious about. At this point in the company's growth, there is a huge opportunity to further differentiate the student’s platform experience from other college classroom forums like Blackboard through new product features like personalized coaching, individualized content curation / recommendation, and better quantification of content quality.

To drive these advancements, we’re looking for dynamic candidate to join Packback as a Senior Product Analyst (SPA). The role focuses on large, ambiguous problems yet will deploy highly technical solutions meaning the ideal candidate is versatile and naturally curious. The role is the first of it’s kind on the Customer Success team and will collaborate with the Product & Engineering teams.

Success is measured by the ability to deploy analytical / data science solutions which drive measurable improvements to the customer experience. The SPA identifies customer pain points, hypothesizes solutions, prototypes MVPs, and validates product requirements for engineering to scale. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on which this role is evaluated - such as Student Net-Promoter Score, Professor Retention, & Platform Content Quality - are key to Packback’s overall growth and success.

Qualifications and Skills

• Demonstrated track-record of professional growth with desire to accelerate
• Proficiency in SQL and Python / R / other OOP language
• Solid grasp on statistical methods and foundational concepts
• Strong individual contribution in unstructured, product problem solving
• Experienced in communicating persuasive business cases (to customers or internally)
• Strong alignment with Packback mission and company values​

Preferred 

• At least 1 year experience in start-up environment (SaaS, tech, or related field)
• Experience with Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning models
• Significant experience building data / machine learning pipelines and shipping production models. 
• Experience working with or on a engineering or DevOps team

Responsibilities and Duties

To effectively execute, a SPA must be able to be excel and independently execute in the following areas:

• Unstructured Problem Solving & Solutioning: puts structure to large, generic business questions by generating problem hypotheses & proposing MVPs./ Designs and deploys MVPs to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort
• Quantitative Analysis & Communication: in the process of solving unstructured problems and solutioning, the SPA utilizes existing Packback data sets or collects new data to drive decision making & effectively communication / validate action plans
• Stakeholder Management: given the cross-team dependencies and variety of stakeholders, the PA effectively collects feedback, makes clear cases for investment, and drives consensus
• Scalable Model Deployment: given that the MVP is a validation exercise and might only lock-in a fraction of potential gains, the PA must be able pass on production-ready requirements and models to engineering.

See end of post for a couple of example projects this role might be responsible for solving

Benefits and Perks

• Convenient South Loop office close to CTA lines, Metra, and paid parking lots
• 6 weeks fully paid, gender non-specific extended leave policy (for either parent welcoming a new child through birth or adoption, or to care for a family member in need)
• Health insurance, option for dental, vision, and life
• Short-term disability insurance
• Flexible vacation policy with a minimum of 10 days recommended
• Competitive salaries and room for professional growth
• Values driven culture that encourages transparency and open communication
• Biannual paid company offsite retreats and outings.
• Access to creative and educational events hosted at the Packback office
• Occasional travel - no more than 5% of the time