We’re looking for someone rare: an entrepreneurial data scientist/quant

Hey, we’re Sebastian & Rayane, the founders of Kairos.

We're building large-scale systems that predict sports outcomes, globally, with exceptional accuracy. To do this, we’re hiring a core team of founding quants/data scientists/software engineers, one of which could be you!

What we actually do (and why it’s fun)

Let’s say Mbappé is slightly injured but he might still play tonight’s game. What’s the impact of the injury report on the probability that he scores? What’s the impact on the overall probability of Real Madrid winning the game? Or let’s say Djokovic is going to play the US Open semi-final against Alcaraz at 3pm local time. It’s probably going to be quite warm at around 30°C. How does that impact his chances of moving onto the final and go for a 25th Grand Slam?

We’re building a platform to answer these kinds of questions. We ingest lots of data, build models and AI systems to make sense of all of it, and generate forecasts. And hopefully, they’re good!

How do we make money?

Well, in a few ways. First, we can sell these forecasts to sportsbooks around the world (think Betclic, DraftKings, Bet365, …). These guys don’t create all their own odds, they buy a bunch from third-party providers. The thing is that historical providers aren’t necessarily the sharpest, or the most tech-savvy. There are literally thousands of sports traders relying on outdated modeling (we see you Poisson) and updating odds manually when market-moving information comes out. We think that’s kind of insane, especially since we’re talking about a $50-100 billion dollar industry here. There are also underlying trends like the shift to player props or live betting that make upfront modeling all the more important, but we can speak about all of that around coffee sometime.

The important thing is: it’s a unique time to build a fundamentally different sports data & odds provider. A company that is tech-first, lean but building for scale to challenge the billion-dollar companies out there.

The second way we make money is, well if you haven’t guessed by now…

Your role: data scientist/quant researcher to make our models less wrong

This means:

• Building predictive models that blend traditional stats with contextual data (injury reports, tactical changes, …)
• Designing experiments and writing code (Python) to test whether our models beat the market
• Scaling modeling to new market types and sports
• Working with a lot of real, messy, data
• Thinking about production

We’re an early-stage startup, working in-person from Paris. So beyond the kind of obvious traits that mean you’d enjoy working on the above (strong background in stats/ML/applied maths) you need to be pretty comfortable with uncertainty. So, you should join us if:

• Early-stage ownership sounds exciting, you’re comfortable with taking on more risk for a big upside
• You value intellectual freedom and personal agency
• You want to work with smart people, who move fast
• You’re competitive (in sports, games, …)
• You want to grow with the company - both professionally and financially (we offer competitive pay and real ownership as this will be your baby too)
• Bonus: you enjoy sports, company events may include sports games & we practice lots of sports together

How to apply

Email us at draftpicks@kairos-research.ai with your CV / portfolio. Even better if you have an anecdote around sports and/or forecasting 😁

Don’t self-reject! You don’t need to know everything about sports, domain knowledge is easy to teach.

PS If this doesn’t sound like you but you know just the right gal/guy, we’d appreciate the intro (and buy you 2 tickets worth up to 500€ to your favorite sports event)