Chief Data Scientist

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Job description

As the Head of AI/Chief Data Scientist, reporting directly to the CEO, you will be responsible for driving the company's AI strategy and execution of that strategy. You will lead and grow the data science team responsible for further developing AI driven intellectual property used for managing risk, fraud, pricing and direct marketing for customers that often lack a traditional credit score. Your team will play a critical role in managing risk, profitability, marketing effectiveness. In addition, you will expand the data science team and collaborate with other areas of the business to lead the ideation, design, development, and deployment of additional AI/Machine Learning (ML) use cases such as personalization and recommendation systems, customer care and enable rapid experimentation.

The mission of this role is to expand the use of AI/ML as the organization continues on its journey of being an AI-driven, digital-first company. As the Head of AI/Chief Data Scientist, you will drive innovation by forming strong partnerships with business and technology leaders to drive customer engagement and improve the customer experience.

The ideal Head of AI/Chief Data Scientist candidate will have a demonstrated track record of building high performing teams and delivering scalable data infrastructure and AI/ML driven solutions. The Head of AI/Chief Data Scientist must have a passion for developing a team culture that inspires excellence in driving business results through collaboration. We encourage our teams to take end-to-end responsibility from conceptualization of ideas to implementation and then to measure the business impact to drive the highest levels of personal accountability.

Responsibilities

• Build and deliver a comprehensive AI/ML roadmap for our customer base from brand awareness, marketing and origination to customer care that will engage customers and maintain long customer relationships across all our products
• Partner with business leaders and product managers in problem framing and conceptualization of ideas, develop consensus, and execute on a prioritized AI/ML roadmap for various use cases
• Lead, build and mentor data science team that solve business problems leveraging AI/ML
• Oversee all phases of AI/ML development, from design, data gathering, training, validation and implementation
• Expand the use of dynamically updated AI/ML models
• Actively identify and manage model risks in line with model risk management policies
• Manage a suite of data science tools/platforms (i.e., Jupyter Notebook), pipelines and reusable code that maximizes productivity and knowledge sharing across the data science team
• Partner with data engineers to build a continuous data capture service leveraging AWS Kinesis and expand feature store to include new families of data and real-time streaming data
• Collaborate with data and machine learning engineers to design and develop scalable machine learning systems (i.e., building a model execution service leveraging MLflow and SageMaker) to improve speed to market and operate with scale in production.
• Partner with a cross-functional team of data engineers, machine learning engineers and product managers to launch AI/ML solutions into production
• Create automated AI and model performance monitoring that aligns with model risk management policy

Qualifications:

• 5-10 years of experience leveraging cloud-based machine learning, data infrastructure and automation to deliver AI/ML driven solutions to solve business problems
• Master's or Ph.D. in Math or Technology (computer science, computer engineering, economics, applied math, statistics, engineering, or other quantitative fields)
• 5-10 years of experience building and managing high performing data science teams including recruitment, career development, mentoring and talent management. Ability to build a large international data science team across multiple time zones.
• 5-10 years of experience in leveraging modern machine learning toolset and programming languages such as Python, R or Scala
• Proven reputation as a highly credible and collaborative partner to business leaders, engineering, and product management teams
• 5-10 years of experience leveraging various machine learning algorithms (e.g., Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, Bayesian Optimization, neural networks, etc.)
• A relentless problem solver and out of the box thinker with a proven track record of driving business results
• Comfortable in a high-growth, dynamic, fast-paced and agile environment
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to work well with executives and to collaborate cross-functionally and lead through influence across functional and organizational lines