Staff Data Scientist

About the role

Bonfire's mission is to accelerate the adoption of healthcare technology and treatments for the patients who need them most. We do this by fueling healthtech companies (including digital health, medical device, and biotech) in their commercialization and go-to-market strategies through leveraging advanced analytics built on top of comprehensive, feature-rich datasets.

About the Role

We're looking for a Staff Data Scientist to join our lean and formidable team as one of our earliest hires and lead data science at Bonfire. This is our most senior data role: you'll own our hardest analytical problems end to end, set the standard for how we turn raw data into answers customers trust, and shape the decisions we make as a company. You'll work directly with customers and the founders, and you'll help hire and mentor the team as it grows.

The problems are ambiguous, the data is messy, and the bar for what we ship is high. We're looking for someone smart, scrappy, rigorous with numbers, fluent with AI tools, and comfortable owning problems that don't come with instructions.

Your Responsibilities

• Advanced analytics & modeling - design and execute statistical analyses, predictive models, and data science workflows in Python and SQL to answer complex, ambiguous questions
• Own the data foundation - build and improve the Databricks pipelines and reusable data assets behind our customer deliverables and products, working at the scale of billions of claims rows
• Work AI-first - use AI tools as a core part of how you analyze data and build deliverables, and shape the analytical engine behind Bonfire's AI-powered products
• Lead data science - set technical direction and quality standards for the function, spot patterns across customer engagements to develop new analytical products, and shape Bonfire's roadmap
• Own customer outcomes - scope projects from discovery through delivery and package findings into clear, customer-ready reports and presentations

Your Experience

• 5+ years in a data science or advanced analytics role
• Strong SQL skills with experience writing complex queries (joins, aggregations, window functions, CTEs)
• Proficiency in Python for modeling, hypothesis testing, and predictive analytics
• Experience building or maintaining data pipelines at scale; Databricks or Spark is a plus
• AI-forward by habit: you already use AI tools daily to work faster and better, and you're excited to keep pushing what they can do
• Rigor by default: you sanity-check every number before it goes to a customer and build habits that catch your own errors at scale
• Excellent communicator with genuine customer empathy; you present complex findings in plain language to both technical and executive audiences
• Experience with medical or prescription claims, provider databases, or similar healthcare data is a plus

Our Offer

• $160K-$225K + 0.05%-0.2% equity
• Significant ownership with autonomy to shape how we deliver value to customers
• High career growth potential as Bonfire grows
• In-person in our NYC, FiDi office preferred (the rest of the team is based in New York); open to remote for the right candidate
• Collaborative, mission-driven culture focused on improving healthcare outcomes

We are unable to sponsor work visas at this time; candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.