Senior Economist

NerdWallet is on a mission to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. Clarity starts with education, and at NerdWallet that is powered by our expert content, hours of research and data.

We are looking for a Senior Economist to be both the analytical engine behind NerdWallet’s original research and the person who takes it to the world — explaining it to a Wall Street Journal reporter on deadline, on a CNBC hit, on a podcast, and increasingly on YouTube, Instagram and X, in your own voice.

You will own the research, analysis, insights, partner with our Communications team to find the story angles inside the numbers, and lead a small team of data journalists who turn analysis into coverage. If you have wanted to help consumers, media and external audiences and build a public profile as an economist, this is the job for you.

This role reports to the Director, Public Relations & Communications.

Where you can make an impact:

Original research and analysis

• Set and own NerdWallet’s economic research and reports, the flagship annual studies, recurring indices and one-off investigations that define what we are known for.
• Conduct original quantitative analysis across every kind of source: NerdWallet’s data, commissioned consumer surveys, federal statistics (BLS, BEA, Census, Federal Reserve, CFPB) and private sector datasets (Zillow, ADP, Indeed, Realtor.com and others).
• Design and interpret survey research, writing the report with new and relevant topics.
• Develop and publish commentary on major data releases (CPI, jobs report, FOMC, GDP, housing) as soon as they publish.
• Hold NerdWallet’s editorial standards for methodology, sourcing and writing.

Story angles and partnership with Comms

• Work side by side with Communications to translate findings into pitchable angles. You are in the room when we decide what to pitch, not handed a request after the fact.
• Maintain a forward-looking pipeline of data narratives tied to the seasonal, cultural and policy moments where consumer finance becomes news.
• Identify where NerdWallet’s data says something no one else can say, and push to invest there.
• Develop the supporting materials, like talking points, backgrounders, methodology that make a story easy for a journalist to run with.

Spokesperson and public presence

• Serve as NerdWallet’s primary economic voice across national broadcast, print, digital and podcast media.
• Build and sustain relationships with reporters and producers so that you are the call they make when consumer finance is the story.
• Build a personal public presence on social and video platforms — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn — with support from our teams. You do not need an audience today, but you need to want one.
• Represent NerdWallet on conference stages, at media dinners and in briefings with policymakers, partners and executives.

Editorial leadership

• Lead, mentor and edit a small team of data journalists producing original analysis and survey-driven studies.
• Own the editorial calendar for data studies and the quality bar for everything that carries a NerdWallet number.
• Raise economic and data literacy across a ~100-person editorial organization through training, guidelines and coaching, as needed.
• Act as an internal advisor, connecting macro conditions to what our audience and our business are seeing.

Your experience:

• Advanced degree in Economics, Statistics, Public Policy or a related quantitative field (PhD welcome; strong applied experience can substitute for a Master’s).
• 8+ years of applied economics experience, ideally in consumer finance, household economics, housing or labor markets.
• A public body of work: published research, commentary or analysis written for a general audience, not only for academic or internal ones.
• Demonstrated comfort as a quoted expert across broadcast, podcast, print or stage. Existing media relationships are a significant plus.
• Willing and eager to be on camera and to build a social presence. An existing following on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or X is a plus, not a requirement; the requirement is the appetite and the willingness to show up consistently.
• Hands-on quantitative skills: R or Python, SQL, and the judgment to work with messy, incomplete or short time series and caveat honestly rather than over-model.
• Fluency with survey methodology, including sampling, weighting, question design, margin of error and with the limits of first-party behavioral data (selection bias, panel drift, coverage gaps).
• Exceptional writing. You can turn a regression result into a headline and a chart into an argument.
• Fluency with AI tools for research, coding and analysis. You use them daily and have a point of view on where they help and where they don’t.
• Editing and mentoring experience, or clear evidence you’d be good at it.

Preferred Qualifications:

• An established audience or content franchise, including newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast or large social following.
• Experience at a data-PR-forward organization.
• Experience building a research or data journalism function from scratch.
• Familiarity with credit bureau, transaction-level or open banking data.
• A track record with policymakers, regulators or congressional testimony.