Senior Data Scientist, Editorial & Content

About the team:

The Data Science & Insights team brings together Data Scientists, Data Analysts, and User Researchers to build a deep, shared understanding of SCMP’s readers and subscribers. We operate at the intersection of behavioural data, human insight, and business strategy. Our role is to turn complex quantitative and qualitative signals into clear direction for Product, Editorial, Marketing, and Leadership.In short, the Data Science & Insights team helps SCMP decide where to focus, what to prioritise, and what to stop doing, based on evidence that leaders trust.

Purpose of the Position:

The Data Scientist – Editorial & Content plays a critical role in supporting editorial subscription decisions through advanced data science and behavioural analysis. Working closely with Editors, Product, Audience and Business teams, this role helps SCMP understand what content drives reader engagement, trust, and subscription value, and how editorial choices translate into sustainable growth.

The position requires strong analytical rigor, the ability to operate in ambiguous newsroom environments, and the confidence to challenge assumptions with evidence.

In this role, you will:

• Act as a strategic analytics partner to Editorial leadership, helping inform content strategy, prioritisation, and resource allocation.
• Design and execute experimentation and causal inference frameworks to measure the impact of editorial decisions on engagement, retention, and subscriptions.
• Develop and maintain reader and content-level models (e.g. engagement propensity, churn risk, content value) that support newsroom and product decisions.
• Translate complex analyses into clear, actionable insights for editors and senior stakeholders.
• Partner with Product, Audience and Research teams to align content performance metrics with subscription growth objectives.
• Identify patterns and opportunities across desks, formats, and themes to inform long-term editorial strategy.
• Contribute to the evolution of SCMP’s data-informed editorial culture, balancing speed, judgment, and rigor.
• Mentor analysts and collaborate with peers to uphold analytical standards across the organisation.

Skills and Experience that will lead to success:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Data Science, Statistics, Economics, or a related quantitative field.
• Minimum 5 years applying data science in complex, real-world environments (media, subscription products, or consumer platforms preferred).
• Strong expertise in experimentation and causal inference (e.g. propensity score matching, Bayesian approaches).
• High proficiency in Python, SQL, and modern analytics workflows.
• Demonstrated ability to influence non-technical stakeholders, including senior editors.
• Comfort operating with imperfect data and ambiguous questions, common in editorial environments.
• Strong business and editorial sensitivity: understands that not all value is immediate or easily measurable.

Work location will be at Causeway Bay office.

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