VP of Data & AI

Description

Location: Seattle, WA (or Remote/Hybrid) Type: Full-Time | Leadership Compensation: Competitive Salary + Meaningful Equity 

ABOUT BUYWANDER

BuyWander is rebuilding the $850B retail returns industry—and turning it into something people actually love. We take chaotic, unstructured truckloads of returned goods and transform them into a fast, fun, treasure-hunt shopping experience powered by AI, real-time auctions, and local curbside pickup.

Think:

• Entertainment meets eCommerce
• Treasure hunting meets Black Friday
• Physical supply chain meets Data Engineering

THE ROLE

We are hiring our first Head of Data & AI.

You will not inherit clean systems, a mature data warehouse, or a team of analysts. You are coming in as a hands-on builder—a "one-person army" to start—tasked with building the entire data function from scratch. Once the foundation is laid and the high-leverage models are running, you will build and lead the team to scale it.

We are looking for a data "mad scientist" who is equal parts architect, quant, and business strategist. If you love taking messy, unstructured physical world data and turning it into marketplace liquidity, keep reading.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN (THE ROADMAP)

You will work directly with the CEO and CTO to execute on seven critical technical priorities:

1. The Core Data Platform (0 ? 1)

• Design and build our modern data stack and pipelines from the ground up.
• Partner with Finance and Ops to standardize reporting and deliver a trusted, scalable data foundation across the company.

2. Auction Design & Yield Optimization

• This is the heartbeat of our business. You will use data and game theory to optimize our auction mechanics.
• Develop models and recommendations for starting bids, auction durations, bundling strategies, and dynamic pricing models to maximize yield and bid velocity.

3. User Demand & Bidder Value (Product Analytics)

• Analyze user behavior across the full journey (browse ? bid ? win ? pickup).
• Model Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), define "Bidder Value," and identify exact friction points in the marketplace to drive retention.

4. Supply-Side Intelligence: Manifest Analysis

• Build models that ingest messy, unstructured vendor manifests (CSVs, PDFs) to estimate yield and unit economics of a truckload and inform purchasing decisions.

5. Operations: Processing Analysis

• Measure and optimize the physics of our warehouse. Track ingestion times, grading accuracy, and labor efficiency to ensure our cost-to-process remains the lowest in the industry.

6. Personalization & Discovery Algorithms

• Build the recommendation engines that power our "For You" feeds. Match the right weird, unique, or high-value item to the exact right bidder at the right time to drive auction intensity.

7. Applied GenAI & AI Strategy

• Act as the internal vanguard for AI adoption. You will monitor rapidly evolving AI trends, test new models, and drive the organization’s AI strategy to ensure we maintain our technological edge.
• Hands-on execution: Design and deploy applied AI microservices, starting with initiatives like an autonomous LLM agent for personalized email outreach and lifecycle re-engagement.

Commercial Acumen: You understand that a beautiful model is useless if it doesn't increase margin or conversion. You think like a business owner.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary and Performance-based Bonuses    
• Meaningful equity in a company attacking a massive market, for a brand that can become nationally recognized    
• Health, Vision & Dental Insurance    
• Unlimited PTO    
• Annual Company Offsites    
• 401K

Requirements

WHAT YOU BRING

• Experience: 7+ years in data science, analytics, or ML engineering roles, with a proven track record of stepping into 0 ? 1 environments.
• The Hacker Mentality: You are highly proficient in SQL, Python, and the modern data stack (e.g., dbt, Snowflake/BigQuery). You don't wait for tickets; you write scripts to figure it out.
• AI-Forward: You aren't just reading about LLMs; you are actively using commercial APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) or open-source models to build internal workflows and agents.

BuyWander is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, skills, merit, and business needs. We believe a range of skills, perspectives, and experiences strengthens our team and supports better outcomes for our employees and customers.