Research Scientist, Demography and Survey Sciences

Meta Meta · Big Tech · Menlo Park, CA

This role is for a quantitative social scientist to join the Demography and Survey Science team, focusing on improving decision-making and impact measurement within Meta. The role involves owning research end-to-end, from project design and methodology to data analysis and communication of results. Candidates should have expertise in statistical inference, survey methodology, causal inference, econometrics, and working with large datasets. While the core of the role is quantitative social science research, there is an expectation to develop AI skills, integrate AI tools into workflows, and adhere to ethical AI practices.

What you'd actually do

  1. Develop a research agenda and drive research projects from end-to-end
  2. Collaborate with cross-functional teams across the company to define relevant research questions
  3. Design and deploy appropriate research methodologies to answer those questions
  4. Develop innovative new approaches to resolve challenging problems
  5. Provide teams with usable measurement strategies and methodologies to make better decisions

Skills

Required

  • 2+ years of experience in quantitative research, data analysis, or a related field
  • Bachelor's, Master's or Ph.D. in the social sciences (e.g., Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Communication), or in a quantitative field (e.g., Statistics, Informatics, Econometrics)
  • Demonstrated experience in designing original research to address complex questions
  • Demonstrated expertise in data manipulation and analysis software and programming languages (Python/R, SQL)
  • Expertise and applied experience in measurement (e.g., survey design and analysis, experiment design, bias correction, measurement models, data collection, log data) and statistical inference (e.g., causal, Bayesian, machine learning)
  • Experience initiating and driving research projects to completion with minimal guidance
  • Experience communicating analyses and results to broad audiences
  • Demonstrated ability to distill and communicate research insights to influence others' thinking, decision-making, and actions

Nice to have

  • Familiarity with qualitative research (e.g., focus groups, interviews, cognitive testing)
  • Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
  • Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
  • Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)

What the JD emphasized

  • quantitative social scientists
  • survey methodology
  • causal inference
  • econometrics
  • regression modeling
  • exploratory data analysis
  • mathematical demography
  • quantitative research methods
  • large datasets
  • relational databases
  • methodological rigor
  • AI skill development
  • prompt/context engineering
  • agent orchestration
  • responsible, ethical AI practices
  • bias mitigation
  • quality and accuracy reviews
  • integrate AI tools
  • optimize/redesign workflows