Academia.edu has built and is expanding the premier distribution and peer review platform for academic research. Guided by our mission to democratize and accelerate the world’s research, Academia aims to make every academic paper ever published available for free online and accessible by anyone in the world. This is just the start of our long-term vision and we are growing fast!

Academia’s platform has registered more than 210 million users (still growing at 2M monthly), and has many millions of unique visitors every month, including over 30M logged-in monthly active users (MAU). We have over 300,000 paying premium subscribers, which has contributed to us being profitable YOY the last five years in a row.

Academia has attracted $62 million in investment from leading VC firms including Khosla Ventures, True Ventures, Spark Capital, and Tencent. Our work has garnered favorable attention from trade and mainstream media including UK Times, Fortune, Wired, EdTech, Venture Beat, San Francisco Business Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, TechCrunch, Scientific American, and Forbes.

Please note that this role is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Our office comes alive on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays! Three times a week, our Bay Area team gathers in our office located in San Francisco's Financial District (580 California St) for All Hands meetings, collaborative sessions, innovation-driven brainstorming, and events that bring us closer together. Our space has everything we need—from cozy rooms for 1:1 mentoring and focused work to larger rooms designed for team activities.

About The Role

As a Senior Business Analyst at Academia.edu , you will play a pivotal role in identifying growth opportunities through data analysis, helping product teams deliver value to users and drive business success. You’ll be embedded in a cross-functional product team, which includes a product manager, product designer, engineers, and user researchers, all collectively focused on owning and advancing a specific product or initiative. Teams rotate every 6 to 12 months to maintain dynamic work environments and encourage fresh ideas.

In this role, you’ll tackle complex challenges, such as improving the academic publishing market or enhancing global connection and collaboration among academics. Academia.edu is a data-driven organization, and your analytic expertise will have a significant impact. If you’re excited about using data to uncover growth opportunities, analyze test results, and provide actionable insights to product teams and leadership, we’d love to hear from you.

How You’ll Contribute

-Identify and proactively pursue opportunities for business growth and scalability within your team and across the organization.
-Gather, analyze, and interpret data to inform product strategy and support the product roadmap.
-Define and track key performance metrics, design and maintain dashboards, and lead business reporting for your product team.
-Design, run, and analyze experiments to drive insights and inform decision-making.

Requirements

-Minimum of 2 years of consulting experience with one of the following firms: Bain, McKinsey, BCG, Oliver Wyman, or LEK, followed by at least 1 year of experience in a B2C software company (candidates not meeting these criteria will not be considered).
-Demonstrated ability to apply critical thinking to business challenges and identify strategic opportunities.
-Proficiency in Excel or Google Sheets for data analysis and reporting.
-Strong communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of influencing decision-making in cross-functional teams.
-Self-starter with a results-oriented mindset, capable of driving outcomes independently.

The Tools You’ll Use To Succeed

-Familiarity with the following tools is beneficial but not required. If you bring strong business problem-solving skills, we’re prepared to support your technical development:
-SQL and databases (Redshift preferred) for writing structured, efficient queries on large datasets.
-Python or R (a plus, but not required).
-Mode for dashboarding and DBT for data transformations (or similar tools).