Job listing: Assistant Elections Analyst

Silver Bulletin is hiring.

UPDATE (May 10): The job listing has now closed, and candidates advancing to the next stage have been notified. Thank you for your interest. The original listing is maintained below for posterity.

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I am looking for somebody to assist with running the 2024 presidential election model. This is a part-time, paid position that will run through November 2024.

I’m not sending this out by email and I’ll wait a couple of days to promote it on social media depending on the number of applicants. So if you know someone who might be a good fit for the position, please direct them to this post.

Typical tasks will include:

• Helping to maintain a current and accurate database of polls and other data used to feed the model

• Assisting me in creating data visualizations based on the model’s output

• Running the model when I am out of pocket

• Helping to identify potential model errors and inconsistencies (e.g. coding bugs, incorrect data)

• Assisting me in other data- and research-driven tasks for the newsletter

• Possible occasional writing about the model and the election for the newsletter, depending on your writing skills

Job requirements:

• Experience with Stata¹

• Experience with creating attractive data visualizations

• Keen interest in election forecasting

• Often available during US business hours and other occasional times when new polls are likely to come out — this is a part-time position and I am happy to work around your other commitments² but this is not just a job that can be conducted solely on nights/weekends

• Cannot be doing paid work for any 2024 campaign

Bonus qualifications:

• Experience with any of the following is not expected, but could lead to expanded hours or continued opportunities beyond November

  • Sports data and modeling

  • Copy editing and preparing content for web publication (e.g. headline and photo selection)

  • Business-side experience in running a subscriber newsletter or another small consumer-facing business

• Continental US time zone

• Experience with writing professional-quality copy

Hours and compensation:

• $40-50/hour

• Expected commitment of 10-15 hours/week through Labor Day, 15-25 hours/week from Labor Day through Election Day

• Paid monthly, with a minimum guarantee of 50 hours (i.e. I will pay you for 50 hours even if we don’t use all of them) with threshold prorated if employment begins in the middle of the month

• Position begins ASAP (though realistically not before mid-May) and phases out on November 30

• Working job title is Assistant Elections Analyst, we can tweak this within reason if there’s something else you prefer

How to apply:

• Email me at NATE DOT SILVER DOT MEDIA at GMAIL DOT COM

• Include the name of the position in the subject heading of the email

• Use your judgment on which materials to include, with the recognition that brevity (putting your best foot forward) and demonstrated evidence of capabilities (e.g. links to projects you’ve worked on) go a long way

• I am hoping to use a single-stage process, identifying 3-6 finalists and conducting follow-up interviews by Zoom. Therefore, please do not be discouraged if you are not a finalist, the threshold is high and I am looking to be expedient in finding someone with the relevant qualifications. I appreciate every application.

• Deadline to apply is 5pm on May 2, 2024

1. If you’re one of those people who has a knack for picking up any programming language, I’ll consider it, but experience with Stata is strongly preferred — the model is written as a series of Stata do-files.

2. One other requirement: you can’t be out of pocket for a more than a couple of days at a time from Labor Day through Election Day. If you’ve got a destination wedding planned in Bali in late October — sorry, but the timing isn’t right for you.