Lead Decision Scientist – Nudge Unit

Job description

At CVS Health, we’re building a world of health around every consumer and surrounding ourselves with dedicated colleagues who are passionate about transforming health care.

As the nation’s leading health solutions company, we reach millions of Americans through our local presence, digital channels and more than 300,000 purpose-driven colleagues – caring for people where, when and how they choose in a way that is uniquely more connected, more convenient and more compassionate.

And we do it all with heart, each and every day.

**A Brief Overview**

Join us to lead the build-out of our new population health nudge unit dedicated to improving health outcomes by applying behavioral insights (“nudges”) at scale.

You will be responsible for driving the design, deployment, and rigorous evaluation of interventions that help millions of members, providers, and employees make better health decisions.

**This Role is For You If:**

+ You want to do something that is innovative from a behavioral sciences perspective and provides tangible real-world impact.
+ You are okay with ambiguity and can creatively build solutions that solve problems, even if those problems are not expressed in formal ways yet.
+ Love innovating and working on small teams that get stuff done and have a lot of autonomy.

**What You Will Do:**

+ **Lead and Launch the Nudge Unit:** Stand up a nudge unit and guide a multi-disciplinary team of social scientists and collaborators to design, implement, and evaluate behavioral interventions across diverse population health domains.
+ **Technical Product Ownership:** Serve as the technical product owner for nudge-based solutions, developing a product roadmap, managing and improving intervention performance, and designing impactful member/provider experiences.
+ **Cross-Functional Leadership:** Provide cross-divisional leadership in a matrixed organization, mentoring junior staff and collaborating with business partners.
+ **Research and Evaluation:** Design, execute, and analyze experiments and quasi-experiments (e.g., A/B testing, differences-in-differences) to generate deep behavioral insights and validate intervention impact.
+ **Project Management:** Track and manage multiple projects and their evaluations, facilitating trainings in behavioral insights techniques, and ensuring timely delivery of results.
+ **Stakeholder Engagement:** Communicate with internal and external experts, represent the unit in executive meetings, and present recommendations to senior leadership.
+ **Rapid Iteration:** Rapidly iterate through solutions, leveraging data and experimentation to optimize outcomes.

**The Ideal Candidate:**

+ Has demonstrated expertise in behavioral science principles and their application in healthcare/population health.
+ Has experience mentoring teams in a scientific leadership or technical product owner role.
+ Has a strong grasp of program evaluation methods, causal inference, and experimental design.
+ Has a proven track record of delivering complex initiatives in dynamic, matrixed environments.
+ Has outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills and can lead, coach, and motivate cross-functional teams.
+ Has experience with Agile project management and rapid prototyping.
+ Healthcare background preferred.

**For This Role You Will Need the Following Minimum Requirements:**

+ 5+ years of experience in applied behavioral research, of which at least three should be post-graduation if you hold a PhD.
+ Mastery of problem solving and decision-making skills.
+ Mastery of collaboration and teamwork.
+ Mastery of growth mindset (agility and developing yourself and others) skills.
+ Mastery of execution and delivery (planning, delivering, and supporting) skills.

**Programming/Technical Skills:**

+ Strong theoretical and hands-on experience with statistics and causal inference required.
+ Hands-on programming skills in R or Python and SQL required.
+ Hands-on experience with cloud computing (Google Cloud, AWS, etc.) preferred.
+ Hands-on experience with tools and processes for version control (i.e. git, GitHub) preferred.

**Education:**

+ Bachelors, Master’s or PhD in Behavioral Science, Psychology, Economics, Public Health, or related field (PhD preferred).
+ PhD preferred.

**Pay Range**

The typical pay range for this role is:

$106,605.00 - $260,590.00

This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls.

The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors.

This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above.

This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program.

Our people fuel our future.

Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

**Great benefits for great people**

We take pride in our comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits – investing in the physical, emotional and financial wellness of our colleagues and their families to help them be the healthiest they can be.

In addition to our competitive wages, our great benefits include:

+ **Affordable medical plan options,** a **401(k) plan** (including matching company contributions), and an **employee stock purchase plan** .
+ **No-cost programs for all colleagues** including wellness screenings, tobacco cessation and weight management programs, confidential counseling and financial coaching.
+ **Benefit solutions that address the different needs and preferences of our colleagues** including paid time off, flexible work schedules, family leave, dependent care resources, colleague assistance programs, tuition assistance, retiree medical access and many other benefits depending on eligibility.

For more information, visit https://jobs.cvshealth.com/us/en/benefits

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on: 10/17/2025

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.
We are an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

We do not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, promotion, or any other personnel action based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex/gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Required Skill Profession

Other General