Staff Applied Scientist- Marketplace Optimization

About ThredUp

ThredUp is transforming resale with technology and a mission to inspire the world to think secondhand first. By making it easy to buy and sell secondhand, ThredUp has become one of the world's largest online resale platforms for apparel, shoes and accessories. Sellers love ThredUp because we make it easy to clean out their closets and unlock value for themselves or for the charity of their choice while doing good for the planet. Buyers love shopping value, premium and luxury brands all in one place, at up to 90% off estimated retail price. Our proprietary operating platform is the foundation for our managed marketplace and consists of distributed processing infrastructure, proprietary software and systems and data science expertise. With ThredUp’s Resale-as-a-Service, some of the world's leading brands and retailers are leveraging our platform to deliver customizable, scalable resale experiences to their customers. ThredUp has processed over 172 million unique secondhand items from 55,000 brands across 100 categories. By extending the life cycle of clothing, ThredUp is changing the way consumers shop and ushering in a more sustainable future for the fashion industry.

Recognized on TIME Most Influential Companies of 2023,  Digiday's WorkLife 50 2023, TIME's Best Inventions of 2022, and Lattice's People Success Awards 2022.

How You Will Make an Impact:

At ThredUp, data fuels our mission to make the world think secondhand first. As the Staff Applied Scientist, you'll join a cross-functional squad of data scientists, engineers, product managers, and marketers to drive strategic decisions across pricing, promotions, and marketplace health. In this role, you’ll get the chance to build pricing and promotion engines and simulate our complex two sided marketplace in order to drive superior customer, supplier, and profit outcomes.

This role reports to our Director of Marketplace Optimization.

In This Role You’ll Get To:

• Pinpoint Growth & Profit Levers: Identify high-impact opportunities across pricing, promotions, and marketplace dynamics—leveraging advanced analytics and breakout AI technology to uncover hidden patterns and revenue streams.

• Build End-to-End, Scalable ML Solutions: Architect and deploy reinforcement-learning agents for dynamic pricing scale across millions of users and listings. Design intuitive, self-service APIs and dashboards so non-technical teams can launch and monitor experiments with ease.

• Blend Causal Inference with AI-Driven Decision Making: Use causal techniques to measure the true impact of price changes, marketing campaigns, and new feature rollouts. Scale inferences and decision making by building contextual bandits and AI agents. 

• Simulate Our Complex Marketplace: Blend inputs / outputs of our models in order to forecast the performance of our marketplace in response to changes in pricing, supply, new customers, and more, allowing for rapid strategic iteration and decision-making.

• Collaborate & Influence: Partner with product, marketing, and engineering teams to co-create pricing and promotional strategies that balance customer value with revenue goals. Evangelize best practices, deliver clear documentation, and mentor stakeholders on self-service tools.

• Drive Innovation: Stay at the forefront of AI/ML research—evaluating emerging architectures and methodologies to keep ThredUp’s pricing and promotions systems best-in-class, both in performance and usability.

What we are looking for:

• 5+ years as a data scientist, applied scientist, ML engineer, or similar role in e-commerce or marketplace contexts.

• Proven track record deploying end-to-end systems that scale to millions of users and items in two sided marketplaces.

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, or related quantitative field.​

• Expert in Python (TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, pandas, PySpark) and SQL.

• Deep experience building scalable data pipelines, real-time inference layers, and MLOps workflows.

• Strong API design skills to ensure easy integration and adoption by cross-functional teams.

• Familiarity with databricks (unity catalog, MLFlow)

• Deep understanding of statistics, causal inference, uplift modeling, and experimental design

• Excellent cross-functional communicator—capable of aligning engineering, product, and business teams around AI strategies.

• Enthusiastic mentor who shares best practices, writes clear documentation, and empowers others to leverage pricing and promotions tooling.

At ThredUp, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. This role pays between $200,000 and $235,000, and your actual base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.
Many ThredUp employees also have the opportunity to own shares of ThredUp stock. ThredUp employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, as well as a discount when purchasing ThredUp stock if voluntarily participating in ThredUp’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Subject to eligibility requirements, you’ll also receive other benefits: Comprehensive medical & dental coverage, vision, 401k, life and disability insurance.

This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

What We Offer:

• 4-day work week, with most Fridays off

• Competitive salary (we leverage market data)

• Many ThredUp employees also have the opportunity to own shares of ThredUp stock and are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards

• Employee stock purchase plan

• Flexible PTO (take the time you need) + 13 company holidays

• Paid Sabbatical after 3 years of full time employment

• Generous paid parental leave for new mothers and fathers

• Medical, dental, vision, 401k, life and disability insurance offered

• We live by our Core Values of Transparency, SpeakingUP, Thinking Big, Infinite Learning, Influencing Outcomes & Seeking the Truth

We believe diversity, inclusion and belonging is key for our team

At ThredUp, our mission has been built on extending the lives of millions of unique clothing items. Much like our inventory, we are proud to have fostered a workplace that is one-of-a-kind. As a company focused on diversity, inclusion and belonging, we are committed to ensuring our employees are comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work every day. A unique perspective is critical to solving complex problems and inspiring a new generation to think secondhand first. Be you.

If you are a candidate with a disability and have a reasonable accommodation request for the job application process, please email [email protected] the specific details of your disability related accommodation request. This email address is reserved for candidates with disabilities only. General application inquiries will not receive a response.