Senior Applied Analyst 

San Mateo, CA

We are seeking a Senior Applied Analyst to drive early-stage exploration, hypothesis development, and rapid analytical prototyping that informs high-impact business decisions across PlayStation’s Global Partner and Developer Relations (GPDR) organization. 

This role sits at the intersection of business, analytics, and data science, and is responsible for shaping ambiguous problems into structured analytical approaches during the early phases of the analytics lifecycle. The Senior Applied Analyst partners closely with Integrated GPDR Leadership, Analytics Partners, Product Managers, and Data Scientists to ensure that the right problems are identified, framed, and prepared for deeper experimentation and modeling. 

This role is critical to accelerating the front-end of the analytics pipeline, ensuring that high-value opportunities are identified quickly and translated into actionable analytical work that supports publisher partnerships, ecosystem growth, and commercial decision-making. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Exploration & Hypothesis Development
  
• Lead early-stage exploration of business problems, identifying high-impact opportunities through data analysis and stakeholder engagement. 
  
• Develop clear hypotheses and analytical approaches to guide experimentation and modeling. 
  
• Translate ambiguous business questions into structured problem statements. 
  
• Explore opportunities to improve publisher performance, ecosystem health, partner engagement, and commercial outcomes through data-driven analysis. 

Rapid Prototyping & Analytical Insight 

• Conduct rapid analyses and build lightweight prototypes to assess feasibility and potential impact.
• Leverage existing data and frameworks to generate directional insights and inform decision-making.
• Iterate quickly to refine hypotheses and narrow focus areas.
• Develop exploratory analytical frameworks that support publisher performance assessment, content investment decisions, and ecosystem intelligence.  

Stakeholder Collaboration 

• Partner with Integrated Analytics Partners, GPDR leadership, Partner Commerce Teams, and cross-functional stakeholders to understand strategic priorities and refine business problems.  
• Communicate insights clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences, both internally and on occasion with the partner directly.  
• Gather feedback and incorporate it into ongoing analysis.  

Partnership with Data Science & Cross Functional Teams 

• Collaborate with Data Scientists and Product Managers to transition validated opportunities into structured experimentation and modeling.  
• Ensure work entering the next phase is well-defined and aligned to business objectives.  
• Provide context and analytical groundwork to support downstream teams.  

Process & Repeatability 

• Develop repeatable analytical approaches and templates for common problem types.  
• Contribute to improving how early-stage analytics work is conducted within and across teams.  
• Help establish scalable analytical approaches, reusable frameworks, and AI-enabled workflows that improve how GPDR Analytics supports publisher-facing teams. 

Qualifications and Education Requirements 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Data Science, Computer Science, or a related field.  
• 8+ years of experience in analytics, data science, or a related field 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience working on ambiguous business problems  
• Experience conducting exploratory analysis, hypothesis development, and data-driven storytelling  
• Proficiency in analytical tools such as SQL, Python, R, or similar  
• Demonstrated ability or strong willingness to leverage AI-enabled tools (e.g., generative or agentic AI) to enhance analytical workflows, accelerate insight generation, and improve decision support 
• Experience working with cross-functional stakeholders and translating business needs into analytical work 

Preferred Skills 

• Experience with experimentation concepts (A/B testing, causal inference) or forecasting and scenario modeling  
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence decisions through data  
• Ability to operate in fast-paced environments and manage multiple exploratory initiatives  
• Familiarity with data science workflows and collaboration with modeling teams  
• Experience developing reusable analytical approaches or frameworks