Principal Data Scientist

About J2 Health

J2 Health is transforming how healthcare organizations design and manage provider networks—one of the most critical yet overlooked levers in delivering high-value care. Today, both consumers and payers struggle to identify the right doctors due to fragmented data and manual processes. J2’s platform combines best-in-class data with purpose-built software to help healthcare organizations build smarter networks that meet patients’ medical and personal needs.

We’re a mission-driven team of healthcare insiders, data experts, and technologists—backed by leading investors like Tiger Global and Primary Ventures—building a product that’s already delivering real value to customers.

At J2, you’ll work alongside a high-performing, collaborative team in an environment where people have real ownership, meaningful agency, and the ability to shape what we build. We’re taking a thoughtful, nimble approach to growth as we scale a real business solving a real problem in healthcare.

About the Role

We're hiring a Principal-level data leader to own and build J2's provider-data "recommendation engine" — the part of our product that recommends contracting leads to health insurers, and distills a single source-of-truth provider dataset out of noisy, conflicting, multi-source data.

This is a foundational role for the function. You'll set the vision for how J2 turns messy provider data into trustworthy, customer-facing data products; you'll be hands‑on building it from day one; and you'll grow and lead the team behind it as it scales. The center of the job is judgment: looking at conflicting data and reasoning, fast and iteratively, toward an answer that makes sense to a real person.

There's significant room to expand the surface area from here, for example, validating a customer's own provider data against J2's source of truth and flagging the records most likely to be wrong.

This is a high-agency seat. We'll give you the problem and the leverage; you'll decide how to solve it and ship.

What you'll own

• The provider-data recommendation engine end to end, from the conceptual model of "what is true about this provider" through to the recommendations customers act on
• Distilling a source-of-truth provider dataset from many noisy, disagreeing sources, and being accountable for whether the output is right and useful , not just whether the pipeline runs
• Bringing LLMs to bear on ambiguous data‑judgment problems, directing AI coding tools to do the building so you and your PM partner can spend your energy on the hard judgment calls
• Shipping iteratively and putting data products in front of customers, then sharpening them based on what actually drives value
• Building and leading the function over time, hiring behind you and scaling a team as the work grows

What success looks like

• First few months: you're hands‑on‑keys and shipping. You've built a working point of view on the source-of-truth model and put early recommendations in front of customers.
• Within the year: the recommendation engine is a real, trusted product surface; you've validated at least one adjacent expansion (e.g. customer‑data validation); and you've begun building the team behind you.

About You

If the following capabilities describe you, you could be a strong fit for this role.

What you know

• A strong, opinionated point of view on how to apply LLMs to ambiguous data‑judgment problems
• Deep familiarity with the realities of messy, multi‑source data and what it takes to reconcile it into something trustworthy
• Enough business and product context to connect data work to customer value
• Knowledge and experience with our Tech stack is relevant but not gating, conceptual skills matter more than any particular stack. What we use today: strong Python , dbt , Postgres and LLM frameworks .

What you can do

• Look at conflicting data and reason quickly toward an output that makes sense to a human: speed, taste, and product sense are the qualities we're hiring for
• Productize your own work: turn a data judgment into a shipped, customer‑facing product, not an internal dashboard or a research artifact
• Build hands‑on today (strong Python; comfort across a modern data stack) while architecting for a team to scale behind you
• Direct AI coding tools effectively so the leverage shows up in how much you ship

What you're like

• Product‑minded, not research‑minded. You're energized by "how do I make sense of this messy data and ship something useful," not by abstract modeling for its own sake.
• Hungry and high-agency. This is the defining trait. You take an open‑ended problem and run.
• Founder energy. You want to do the work now and build the function — both, not one.
• Commercially oriented. You instinctively ask whether the result actually makes sense and moves the customer, not just whether the job succeeded.

Experience & Background

• Senior / principal level, ~5–7 years is the sweet spot. We'd rather bet competitively on a high-caliber 5‑7‑year builder than insist on a longer track record.
• Real startup, 0-to-1 and 1-to-n product experience. You've built something from nothing and helped it grow.
• A track record of shipping data products that customers used, not internal BI or published research.

This might not be the right fit if…

• You think primarily in pipelines and infrastructure and measure success by whether the data moved, rather than by the quality and usefulness of the output
• You're drawn to abstract, research‑oriented work and methodological rigor for its own sake. This is a fast, ambiguous, product‑driven problem, and a heavily academic orientation tends to fight against it
• Your background is primarily statistical, actuarial, or finance‑modeling and you're not genuinely excited by messy‑data product judgment
• You want to manage rather than build. There's a team to grow here, but the leader has to love the hands‑on work too
• You're looking for a lifestyle role. We protect work‑life balance, but we want someone with real hunger.

Working Here

• New York City-based hybrid role (in‑office 3x week). Remote work with quarter in‑office visits possible for exceptionally qualified candidates.
• Competitive compensation, stock options, and health insurance.
• Unlimited PTO: take the time you need when you need it
• Commuter Benefits
• Stipend for at‑home work machine and equipment
• A world‑class team of fun, welcoming, ego‑free, proven entrepreneurs with whom to build lifelong relationships

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $200K - 240K. Compensation will be determined based various factors, including but not limited to specialized skill sets, years of relevant experience, relevant certifications, and primary location.

J2 Health is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. Studies show women and people of color are less likely to apply unless they meet 100% of the qualifications. If you’re excited about this role and believe you could make a meaningful impact, we encourage you to apply—even if your background doesn’t perfectly align.

J2 Health is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind.