TLDR;

Are you fascinated by applying Data Science to the real world and noble purposes? Don’t wait, we have a challenging opportunity for you at Qomon!

Quick disclaimers:

• ⚠️ This job is not focused on models / AI / ML / DL / “Big Data”, there is plenty of stuff to do besides that in the data-science world 🤗 Let us really emphasise on the full-stack words in the title (tech / dev wise) first, data-scientist part second.
• We welcome applicants that are (or will be) recent graduates! 🎓 (with good software engineering knowledge, not necessarily experience)
• We really are into building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace! We don’t expect candidates to match and feel at ease with every line of this lengthy job description: if you are excited by the opportunity, we strongly encourage you to apply and we shall see what impactful role we can shape together 🚀

We do believe it’s a one-of-a-kind opportunity

• You will be taking part in a growing startup (and B-Corp), human-sized, with an experienced staff, supporting entrepreneurial mindsets, ownership, and with a very open / transparent / 0 bullshit company culture. Just like any team member, you will take part in the “100 jours”, our quarterly 2-day company-focused gathering where we share / learn / discuss roadmaps, practices, strategic choices, etc.
• We are committed to a challenging, diverse and meaningful sector: citizen-driven organisations, NGOs, movements, campaigns, etc. all over the world.
• We are closely collaborating with a wide range of citizen-focused actors and organisations in France and in 20+ countries. Qomon R&D team is at the forefront of our actions.
• Code & data quality / maintainability is highly valued, while keeping a startup / pragmatic spirit.
• We don’t do shady / micro personalised / micro targeted / big data stuff; we actually mainly work with (small) Open Data!

As a (full-stack) data-scientist, you may contribute to several areas

• Applied research: work on unique geo-based datasets to help our clients and the public better understand their territories or develop specific algorithms / statistical pipelines. This research will most often apply to all our clients but we might do custom research for specific clients or Public Relations purposes.
• Software engineering: Develop, test, improve our production pipelines, utils & APIs (REST web services to make our data & algorithms public).
• Data engineering: with performance and data size considerations automate data ingestion, data production, quality assurance.
• Database engineering: tune database models / requests / configurations.
• Geo data engineering: Create & update internal countries geo referential.
• Frontend development: improve our data visualisations (mostly as maps for now) and the general User Experience on parts of the Qomon WebApp under the responsibility of the R&D team.
• DevOps: work on CI/CD, monitoring, etc.

We obviously do not expect full proficiency over all those areas (awareness & curiosity will be valued).

NB: you should expect the “deep abstract math” oriented research to account for 5 to 10% of your work at most. It’s important to be able to do maths, but you will not be building models all day long. You shouldn’t be joining us while having in mind that you’ll be applying the latest ML algos on some random data. Note also that we are definitely growing so scopes will likely change in the future (less frontend? more data/product analysis? it really depends on what directions we want to go).

We are looking for someone who wants to hone her/his data-science skills, who’s bringing a little something more (anything), and who’s willing to do the whole work and not just the fancy math thinking :)

Data / R&D stack

Here is a bit of name-dropping regarding our stack in the team: Unix, Python (and its scientific stack — Pandas, Numpy, Scikit-Learn, …), Jupyter, PySpark, Sqlite + Spatialite, ElasticSearch (to be killed very soon), PostgreSQL, Apache Avro, Redis, Celery, Dagster, Docker, Kubernetes, QGIS, Flask (to be removed), FastAPI, Vue.JS, Leaflet (to be removed), Mapbox GL JS, Gitlab, Gitlab-CI, Ansible, Terraform, Helm.

General team info

Here is some quick information about the team.

Qomon

We currently are around 17 full-time employees and growing at a reasonable and organised pace:

• Paris: CEO, Head of operations, 3 sales, 1 marketing, 1 CSM, 1 Growth.
• Bordeaux: CTO (/backend dev) + 1 dev Backend + 1 Backend dev intern, 4 frontend devs, 1 (+ you) Full-Stack data-scientist (usually +1 intern), 1 CSM.

We are expecting new full-time members in most Qomon teams by the end of 2023 and more later on ;)

On another topic, the day-to-day language at Qomon in Bordeaux is French. In Paris it’s a mix of French and English as we are very lucky to have foreigners in the team!

We meet (virtually) on a weekly basis for half an hour during our “Monday Digest” where everyone shares his/her weekly achievements and plans.

We gather IRL for each quarter during the “100 days” (already described above).

We have a 0 useless / unprepared meeting policy.

We are a small team, the hierarchy is rather flat and there is no micromanagement. But this doesn’t mean that there is 0 management: team leaders, more senior members, and the CEO / CTO are always available on demand to discuss objectives, carriers, everyday life issues, etc. And obviously, at least once a year 😊 It really is a collective adventure and we want everyone to feel at ease 🚀

Team: Tech / Product

So the tech team is in Bordeaux 🍷
It has a strong team spirit, it is composed of individuals with a diverse set of expertise, backgrounds and motivations which makes things interesting! 🔥

To be clear upfront, not all processes are set in stone yet and we are regularly challenging our organisation / scopes / etc.

The current situation is that the product team works on 2-week sprints and we do quick writen dailies to understand everyone progress and challenges.

In terms of general tooling we are using Gitlab, Slack, Discord, Clickup & Notion.

Team: Data / R&D

Our main focus is to deliver value & actionable insights to our clients. Those should resonate as “calls to action”. For this matter, we are working closely with the Product team to make our innovations accessible and usable by everyone.

The Data / R&D team is still kind of on the side of the Product team (we tend to have less estimatable task to perform and are more involved with clients or during the client lifecycle, so we don’t have the exact same rhythm).

👉 A solo member, Florent!

Note: yes, I am the one writing this job post. You can check my LinkedIn to better understand who you are / will be dealing with. I have joined this unique adventure at Qomon in May 2021, and I have been truly enjoying my time here 🚀 I am driven by Data-Science for good and ownership.

FYI, I am also Qomon Data Protection Officier (there is just plenty of different stuff to do @Qomon)

PS: yeah, this is a lengthy job post, but it’s the way I like job posts; let’s avoid surprises!

Finally, my vision for the data / R&D team is:

Here is the non-negotiable order of priorities in the team.

1. Deliver correct data (do all the QA needed, never trust yourself and never trust the reviewer)
2. Everything else (meeting deadlines included)
3. Still, do our best to meet deadlines.

The challenge here is not only to deliver working things, but to deliver correct stuff! 🤓

Since we are often looking for data and punctually involved with clients everywhere in the world, for this position we will look for a future teammate with a professional level of English (>= C1 in Reading / Writing / Speaking).

Your future objectives

Here is a subset of your future objectives:

• Co-create the Data & R&D quarterly roadmaps (yes, we really do this kind of stuff, we are definitely not looking for a voiceless / suggestion-less subordinate 🤞)
• Obviously, enjoy doing the tasks of the roadmaps ;)
• Contribute to the company processes and discussions,
• Get fully familiar with the whole data projects / architecture @Qomon, we want you to end up being on an equal footing with Florent regarding production deployments / problem solving.
• Work on making our product more scalable (ease of onboarding, user autonomy, etc.) and defendability (what makes our product unique).

What we have to offer 🎁

💸 Competitive package to work — we believe it — in a fascinating industry with huge challenges coming in the nearest future :)
🗣️ Join a team as a first 20 employees in a hand-on and international environment
🏢 Paris office in “Le Marais” or Bordeaux office in “Saint Michel”
🫂 Take part in a small team with a huge ambition
🔥 Freedom to act and to develop your skills within an experienced & growing team
🚄 Regular team offsites every quarter to stay trained and aligned (but also have fun) (les “100 jours”)
🚉 50% coverage of your transport tickets
⚕️ The hightest-level of Alan health coverage 90% supported by Qomon
💻 A computer, and what you need to work
🏠 Possibility of remote
📱 Product first team with huge ambitions in an incredible momentum
🅱️ Qomon is certified B-corp. Certified B Corporations are a new kind of business that balances purpose and profit.

Paris only for now:
🍓 Fruits and Candies on Mondays at the Office
🧘 Yoga class on Wednesdays

NB: keep in mind the quick disclaimers written at the top of this job post.

• You have completed a master’s degree in Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science, or equivalent, with notable success & happiness.
• You do enjoy (and know about) Maths and Data Science and Computer Science (algorithms, data structures, etc.
• You are or feel ready to write production code (no worries, you won’t be let loose) — preferably in Python (bonus if you also know / like JavaScript).
• Open-minded about and attracted by our view of full-stack data science.
• Willing to join the team in the beautiful city of Bordeaux or Paris. The current general company rule is at least 2 days in the office a week.
• Interested in working / ok to work with a wide range of political organisations,
• Used to sharing your opinions and continuously improving,
• You have a professional level of English (>= C1 in Reading / Writing / Speaking),
• Flexible enough for the evolving nature of a startup & rigorous enough for working with data in general,
• Ability to finish things,
• (bonus) Interest in citizen-driven organisations.

Subject to changes.

• A brief screening call with Florent (Lead Data Scientist @Qomon) & quick technical discussions
• Qomon demo by a team member
• Technical test done remotely
• In office debrief (Paris or Bordeaux) + science oriented discussion + Code base / architecture tour, with Florent and likely other team members
• Getting to meet the Tech / Bordeaux / Paris team
• Final screening with our CTO Jean-Baptiste & CEO Florent B.