Senior Data Scientist

Craft:

Data, Analytics & Strategy

Job Description:

We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist to work closely with product, game design and engineering on game difficulty, progression, and economy in Candy Crush Saga. In this role, you will help ensure that our 21,000+ levels and game features combine into a balanced, engaging, and evolving player experience.

You will operate close to the game, applying game analytics, experimentation, and modeling to inform decisions that directly influence gameplay and affect millions of players.

Role and responsibilities

• Analyze and evaluate game difficulty, progression, and player behavior across the level catalog
• Design, monitor, and analyze A/B tests related to difficulty, features, and economy
• Study how features, boosters, and economy mechanics interact with levels and player outcomes
• Use data, models, and simulations to support decisions around difficulty tuning, pacing, and balance
• Provide a strong analytical perspective in product and design discussions, helping shape priorities and trade-offs
• Communicate insights, experiment results, and recommendations clearly to stakeholders with varying levels of data literacy
• Ensure that the data needed to understand player interaction with levels and features is available, reliable, and well understood
   

Skills

Product and player understanding

• Strong product sense with the ability to reason about player experience, engagement, and frustration
• Ability to translate design intent and game experience into measurable hypotheses and analyses
• Comfortable working iteratively with product managers, game designers and engineers.
   

Analytics and experimentation

• Strong analytical coding skills in Python or R
• Excellent SQL skills and experience working with large-scale player data
• Solid understanding of A/B testing, experimental design, and statistical inference
• Experience combining experimental results with observational analysis
   

Modeling and problem solving

• Ability to systematically break down complex game systems into solvable analytical problems
• Experience with simulation, optimization, or algorithmic approaches is a strong plus
   

Communication and collaboration

• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
• Ability to influence decisions through clear storytelling, visualization, and data-driven reasoning
• Experience working closely with cross-functional product teams
   

Bonus points

• Experience with game difficulty balancing, progression systems, or virtual economies
• Background in behavioral psychology, economics, or game theory
• Experience in the games industry or other large-scale consumer products
• Familiarity with large-scale experimentation platforms and live-operated products

About King

With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world’s most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits such as Farm Heroes Saga. King games are played by more than 200 million monthly active users. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), has Kingsters in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at King.com or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on X.