Graduate Data Scientist

Location:

London (office-based, ~4 days per week)

Build Something That Matters

native has been building for 10 years, but we're still very much a startup: fast-moving, ambitious, and building with intent. We're creating the infrastructure that connects students, Students’ Unions, universities, and advertisers through a managed marketplace.

Our goal is to increase student engagement while enabling Students’ Unions to secure sustainable funding. For advertisers, we offer meaningful, measurable routes to student audiences. The more aligned these incentives are, the more defensible and scalable our business becomes.

We’re looking for graduates who want to step straight into meaningful work, learn quickly, and grow fast.

What We’re Looking For

We value clarity of thought, good judgement under pressure, and the ability to create structure where none exists.

You Might Be Right For This If

• You think in first principles, not borrowed answers – solving problems from the ground up
• You thrive in ambiguity – you’re comfortable making decisions when there isn’t a map
• You do the work – not for applause, but because it matters to you that things are done well
• You’ve got range – you’re not just smart on paper; you’ve done things that demanded resilience, judgement, or initiative

We are open to a wide range of degree backgrounds, but we look for intellectual sharpness and structured thinking. That often shows up in disciplines like engineering, maths, philosophy, languages (whether classical or modern), or history - but not always. If your academic path is less typical, help us understand how your thinking has been shaped and why it stands up.

What You’ll Be Working On

You'll be directly involved in:

• Developing predictive models to identify patterns in student behaviour and engagement, using real data from hundreds of thousands of students
• Refining student personas by analysing survey responses, behavioural data, and qualitative insights, ensuring accuracy and usefulness
• Conducting advanced statistical analysis and clustering to uncover insights about student segments, motivations, and behaviours
• Collaborating closely with the Student Personas team to translate analytical findings into clear, actionable recommendations
• Creating robust documentation and clearly communicating your methods and results, ensuring reproducibility and clarity

This role is deeply analytical and technical, designed to rapidly build your practical skills in data science and predictive modelling within a real, high-impact environment.

Required Skills

You'll be right for this role if:

• You have strong analytical skills, demonstrated by excellent academic results, research projects, academic papers, or high placements in data science competitions
• You have practical experience with statistical modelling or machine learning techniques (regression analysis, clustering, classification, predictive modelling) through coursework, internships, or independent projects
• You are proficient in Python (especially pandas, numpy, scikit-learn, or similar libraries) and comfortable performing data analysis using Jupyter notebooks or similar tools
• You are comfortable writing clear, efficient SQL for extracting, cleaning, and preparing datasets, demonstrated through coursework, internships, or personal analytical projects
• You have demonstrated initiative by independently exploring additional analytical and machine learning tools or frameworks, such as BigQuery, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar

Progression

This is an initial six-month engagement. If you perform well, the expectation is that you’ll move into a promoted, permanent role at the end of that period. We treat this as a proving ground for long-term hires, not an internship.

During your interview process, you'll be encouraged to speak with previous graduate hires at native who joined through this route, so you can hear directly how this role can set you up for rapid career progression.

Location and Ways of Working

You’ll be based in our London office, working in person at least four days a week, with one optional day remote. We believe in high-bandwidth collaboration and fast decision-making, so most of the work happens face-to-face.

How To Apply

We don’t want a cover letter. Instead, answer a few questions we have which will help us understand how you think:

• A trade-off you’ve had to make and how you decided
• A problem you tackled without much guidance
• A system or process you’d redesign and how you’d go about it
• A time you had to choose what not to do, and why

Also please do include a recent CV, or a link to your LinkedIn profile / equivalent.

If you’re reading this and thinking, "I really want to do this, but I probably won’t get picked" - apply anyway. We care far more about how you think and how you show up than whether you tick every imagined box. Don’t rule yourself out.

We’re hiring on a rolling basis. If this sounds like the kind of challenge you’re ready for, get in touch.

Equal Opportunity Statement

We are actively creating an equitable environment for everyone at native to thrive.

Diversity and inclusion are a priority for us and we are making sure we have lots of support for all of our people to grow at native. At native, we embrace diversity in all of its forms and foster an inclusive environment for all people to do the best work of their lives with us.

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