The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team is looking to hire a Stan user

Andrew and I have blogged before about job opportunities in baseball for Stan users (e.g., here and here) and here’s a new one. This time it’s the Tampa Bay Rays who are hiring. The job title is “Analyst, Baseball Research & Development” and here are the responsibilities and qualifications:

Responsibilities:
* Build customized statistical modeling tools for accurate prediction and inference for various baseball applications.
* Provide statistical modeling expertise to other R&D Analysts.
* Optimize code to ensure quick and reliable model sampling/optimization.
* Author both technical and non-technical internal reports on your work.

Qualifications:
* Experience with Stan or other probabilistic programming language
* Experience with R or Python
* Deep understanding of the fundamentals of Bayesian Inference, MCMC, and Autocorrelation/Time Series Modeling.
* Start date is flexible. For example, candidates with an extensive amount of remaining time left in an academic program are encouraged to apply immediately.
* Candidates with non-traditional schooling backgrounds, as well as candidates with Advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in Statistics, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field are encouraged to apply

That’s just part of the job ad, so I recommend checking out the full posting, which includes important details like the fact that remote work is a possibility.

Here are a few other details I can share that aren’t included in the job ad:

  • The Rays have already been using Stan for years now so you won’t be the only Stan user there.
  • A few years ago a few of us (Stan developers) did some consulting/training work for the Rays and had a great experience. Some of their R&D team members have changed since then but I still know some of the ones there and I highly recommend working with them if you’re interested in baseball.
  • The Rays always have one of the lowest payrolls for their roster and yet they are somehow consistently competitive (they even made the World Series last year!). I’m sure there are multiple reasons for this, but I strongly suspect that the strength of the R&D team you’d be joining is one of them.

 

6 thoughts on “The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team is looking to hire a Stan user

  1. Yeah, this is a great opportunity for baseball analytics gurus. As a Rays fan and Tampa resident, I am glad to see them looking for experts. Just a comment – it is probably inevitable tat the Rays are going to move out of St. Pete within five years. So, I suspect that they would be very open to remote workers. St. Pete is a great city but just not large enough to support a major league team. The latest rumors have Montreal and Nashville as eventual landing spots.

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