Data Analyst job at Basecamp

Job Description

Basecamp is hiring a Data Analyst to help us make better decisions in all areas of the business. This includes everything from running A/B tests with statistical rigor to forecasting revenue for the year to tracing performance problems to analyzing usage patterns.

We’re looking for an experienced candidate who’s done similar work elsewhere. But nobody hits the ground running. You won’t be able to answer every question immediately or know how all the systems work on day one — and we don’t expect you to.

This is a remote position, however we're only considering candidates who live in North or South America. This position requires working hours that overlap closely with those of our COO, who lives in Chicago.

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and identities to apply for a job where they can do the best work of their career. Basecamp is committed to being a calm company where we don't regularly work longer than 40 hours a week and take proper vacations.

This position reports to our COO, Elaine Richards.

About the job
Data informs almost everything we do at Basecamp, but we’re not a “data-driven organization” in the sense that data dictates decisions. Data is there to illuminate and illustrate, not bind or burden us.

This means the job isn’t about maximizing revenue or minimizing costs above all else. Yes, we want to make money and we don’t want to be wasteful, but we also want to be kind, considerate, fair, flexible, and calm. You won’t be looking for ways to squeeze every last sour drop out of the lemon at Basecamp.

But you will help us make sense of the data. Establish the facts. Put a price on the choices we make. Help us understand the business, our software, and its customers.

Here are some examples of projects you might work on:

Analyzing the performance of a new marketing page. Track the cohort that signed up with this variation. Keep us patient for a statistically significant result. Compute the value of the change.
Identify when a brute-force login attack started, quarantine the IP addresses involved, work with technical operations to bolster our defenses, and write up the forensics report at the end.
Analyze our purchase records to locate transactions within states that are starting to collect sales tax on software like ours, work with our accounting company to document that sourcing method, and help evaluate whether we should buy or build a sales-tax engine.
Help product strategy analyze usage data to figure out whether a certain feature is working as intended, and if it is, who it’s important to.
Illuminate how we’re spending money on cloud computing today, and estimate how much we’ll be spending next year, given our growth patterns.
Answer the question: Has Basecamp 3 gotten slower in the last 6 months? Compare aggregate performance data to find the high-level trends, then help us pinpoint data tipping points or code regressions.

Answering these questions usually means formulating and running queries against our big data infrastructure (which primarily runs on ElasticSearch/Kibana). But it also means just doing the basic math, and ensuring we’re being statistically rigorous. You should be able to do both the technical and statistical work to answer questions like the ones in the examples above.

That’s a lot of different areas of responsibility! So you probably won’t be an expert in all of them, and that’s fine. A solid fundamental approach to analysis will pave the way.

And you’ll have plenty of help! Basecamp has a Security, Infrastructure, and Performance (SIP) group that’s responsible for improving the programmatic access to our the data pipeline, storage, and analytical interfaces. And an Operations (Ops) group that’s responsible for running our servers, network, and cloud services. It’s a plus if you’re able to help evolve these systems, but by no means a requirement.

About you
In broad strokes, Managers of One thrive at Basecamp. We’re committed generalists, eager learners, conscientious workers, and curators of what’s essential. We’re quick to trust. We see things through. We’re kind to each other, look up to each other, and support each other. We achieve together. We are colleagues, here to do our best work.

You’ll probably have a degree that has exposed you to the rigor of the analytical work. If you don’t have a degree in Theoretical Statistics, that’s not a showstopper — and it’s not what we’re looking for, anyway! We care about what you can do and how you do it, not about how you got there.

You should be comfortable working remotely . This means that the bulk of our work is written, whether that be in the form of long reports or short chats. We value good writers.

We also value people who can take a stand yet commit even when they disagree. We subject ideas to rigorous debate, but all remember that we’re here for the same purpose: to do good work together. Charging the trust battery is part of the work.

We respect everyone's right to participate in political expression and activism, but avoid having political debates on our internal communication systems. Basecamp as a company also does not weigh in on politics publicly, outside of topics directly related to our business. You should be at peace with both of these stances.

About our pay & benefits
Our pay is within the top 10% of the industry, for the matched role and experience, based on San Francisco rates. This comes to a range between $162,700 - $201,982, based on seniority. No matter where you live. Plus, with two years under your belt, you’ll participate in our profit-sharing program.

Our benefits support a life well-lived away from work. Ample time off and all the resources you need to support you in doing the best work of your career. Here's more on the benefits we offer.

How to apply
Please send an application tailored to this position that speaks to us. Introduce yourself as a colleague. Show us that future. As we said, we value great writers, so please do take your time with the application. Forget that generic resume. There’s no prize for being the first to submit!

We’d like to hear about how you’d approach some of the example projects outlined in the description about the job. Imagine you’re doing the work and walk us through your thinking.

All that being said, don’t send in a copy of War & Peace. Be kind to the people doing application triage and keep your cover letter to fewer than 800 words and the thoughts on project approaches below the same ceiling.

Go for it!
We are accepting applications for this position until Monday, November 8 at 5:00PM US-Central time. We’ll let you know that we’ve received your application. After that, you probably shouldn’t expect to hear back from us until after the application deadline has passed. We want to give everyone a fair chance to apply and be evaluated.

We know this is a demanding application process! We appreciate you giving us that consideration, and we promise to give you our full attention in return. We look forward to hearing from you!

Interested in this position?

Click here to learn how to get in touch