Zynga Verified

Video Games, Mobile Gaming, Interactive Entertainment

Principal Data Analyst - Poker

Austin, TXOnsiteFull TimePosted 1 month ago

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Required skills

Python
SQL
ETL
A/B testing
dashboards
game telemetry
fraud detection
bad actor models
statistical analysis
data mining

Nice to have

Tableau
Git
poker gameplay
social casino economies
AI initiative

Role summary

Zynga Poker is seeking a Principal Data Analyst to drive data-driven decisions impacting millions of players. This role involves shaping product strategy through trend analysis, designing and analyzing experiments, maintaining BI dashboards and ETL pipelines, enhancing fraud detection models, and designing game telemetry. The analyst will collaborate with product, game design, and consumer insights teams, support the economy team, and play a leading role in fraud model improvement. A Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field, 8+ years of experience (6 in Product Data Science or Gaming Analytics), proficiency in Python and SQL, and experience with data mining, visualization, statistical analysis, and machine learning are required. Familiarity with BI tools like Tableau, Git, AI/ML concepts, and LLMs for process improvement is advantageous. The role requires strong communication and problem-solving skills, with a willingness to take ownership.

Level Up Your Career with Zynga!

At Zynga, we bring people together through the power of play. As a global leader in interactive entertainment and a proud label of Take-Two Interactive, our games have been downloaded over 6 billion times—connecting players in 175+ countries through fun, strategy, and a little friendly competition.

From thrilling casino spins to epic strategy battles, mind-bending puzzles, and social word challenges, our diverse game portfolio has something for everyone. Fan-favorites and latest hits include FarmVille™, Words With Friends™, Zynga Poker™, Game of Thrones Slots Casino™, Wizard of Oz Slots™, Hit it Rich! Slots™, Wonka Slots™, Top Eleven™, Toon Blast™, Empires & Puzzles™, Merge Dragons!™, CSR Racing™, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells™, Match Factory™, and Color Block Jam™—plus many more!

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in California, our teams span North America, Europe, and Asia, working together to craft unforgettable gaming experiences. Whether you're spinning, strategizing, matching, or competing, Zynga is where fun meets innovation—and where you can take your career to the next level.

Join us and be part of the play!

Position Overview:

Join the Zynga Poker Analytics Team

Zynga Poker is seeking a Principal Data Analyst to help drive decisions that impact millions of players worldwide. At Zynga, Principal is the next step above Senior; a great fit for analysts ready to take on broader ownership and scope. As part of our analytics team, you'll play a crucial role in shaping the future of our game through data-driven insights.

Here's how you'll shape the player experience:

Product Strategy: Analyze long and short-term trends to deliver insights that influence product direction

Experimentation: Design, conduct, and analyze statistically sound experiments that drive measurable impact

Business Intelligence: Maintain comprehensive dashboards and ETL pipelines to keep the organization informed on game performance

Game Integrity: Enhance fraud detection and bad actor models to maintain a healthy gaming ecosystem

Join us if you love solving analytical puzzles that impact millions!

What You'll Do:

Collaborate with the Product team to enhance revenue, retention, and engagement metrics. This includes conducting A/B testing, performing insights analysis, and developing dashboards.

Analyze player behavior to understand motivations and preferences, partnering with game design and consumer insights teams to translate findings into actionable experience improvements.

Design and maintain ETL pipelines to extract, transform, and load data from multiple sources, ensuring source of truth for analyses and business intelligence.

Participate in and contribute to the Analytics Org’s AI initiative, which is doing significant strides in improving analytics workflows through AI

Design game telemetry to capture meaningful player interaction data to improve the game experience.

Design and maintain a suite of highly visible dashboards used by game leadership and game designers to make strategic decisions for Zynga Poker

Support the economy team in tuning the different features in the game to optimize for long term game and feature health

Play a leading role in the design and continuous improvement of our fraud and bad actor models

Actively play and engage with our games to maintain first-hand understanding of player experience, game mechanics, and potential pain points.

Monitor and maintain the integrity of a wide range of tools and models used to streamline workflows and personalize the player experience, in collaboration with other data analysts and scientists on the team.

Continuously learn about analytics best practices, and actively share and promote these practices across various games and teams.

What You Bring:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or a related quantitative field. Advanced degrees (Masters or PhD) are a plus.

Minimum of 8 years in data science or analytics roles, preferably with 6 years in a Product Data Science or Gaming Analytics team

Demonstrated experience guiding product teams through complex decisions and analyses and dealing with ambiguous data

Proficiency in Python and SQL.

Demonstrated experience in data mining, data visualization, statistical analysis, and machine learning.

Familiarity with Business Intelligence (BI) tools like Tableau and version control systems such as Git is advantageous.

Strong ability in both written and oral communication.

Experience/ Demonstrated interest in improving analytics team's processes and work efficiency using LLMs.

Highly self-motivated with a keen interest in problem-solving.

Willingness to take ownership of challenges.

Proven ability to work collaboratively as part of a team.

Strong communication skills - you can explain complex data in simple, actionable terms

Familiarity with AI/ML concepts or experience in automating recurring analytics workflows is a plus

Bonus Points:

Experience/ Interest in improving analytics team's processes and work efficiency using LLMs.

Familiarity with poker gameplay and terminology

Familiarity with social casino economies

What We Offer You:

Zynga offers a world-class benefits package that helps support and balance the needs of our teams. To find out more about our benefits, visit the Zynga Benefits site

The pay range for this position in Ontario at the start of employment is expected to be between $118,300 and $142,000 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards and eligibility to participate in our 401(K) plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program. Regular, full-time employees are also eligible for a range of benefits at the Company, including: medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance coverage; 14 paid holidays per calendar year; paid vacation time per calendar year (ranging from 15 to 25 days) or eligibility to participate in the Company’s discretionary time off program; up to 10 paid sick days per calendar year; paid parental and compassionate leave; wellbeing programs for mental health and other wellness support; family planning support through Maven; commuter benefits; and reimbursements for fitness-related expenses. The use of Artificial Intelligence is not being used to screen candidates. The position is for an existing vacancy.

Please note that Zynga is unable to provide visa sponsorship or assistance for this position. All candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without requiring current or future employer sponsorship.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, which means we are committed to creating and celebrating diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds throughout our organization. Employment with us is based on substantive ability, objective qualifications, and work ethic – not an individual’s race, creed, color, religion, sex or gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, alienage or citizenship status, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence or sex offenses, reproductive health decision, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to providing the necessary support and accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, health conditions, or impairments (subject to any local qualifying requirements) to ensure their full participation in the job application or interview process. Please contact us at accommodationrequest@zynga.com to request any accommodations or for support related to your application for an open position.

Please be aware that Zynga does not conduct job interviews or make job offers over third-party messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp, or others. Zynga also does not engage in any financial exchanges during the recruitment or onboarding process, and will never ask a candidate for their personal or financial information over an app or other unofficial chat channel. Any attempt to do so may be the result of a scamp or phishing attack, and you should not engage. Zynga’s in-house recruitment team will only contact individuals through their official Company email addresses (i.e., via a zynga.com, take2games.com, naturalmotion.com, smallgiantgames.com, themavens.com, gram.gs email domain).

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