Principal Data Scientist

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Establish the technical vision for data science at Forward Financing.

• Lead high-impact and ambiguous data science projects from inception to implementation.

• Develop the multi-year roadmap for data science initiatives.

• Determine the framework for model construction and deployment throughout the organization.

• Act as a reliable technical advisor to senior management.

• Oversee the design, development, and deployment of intricate, high-stakes statistical and machine learning models.

• Manage the complete delivery process from problem identification and model design to deployment, monitoring, and refinement.

• Direct the technical strategy and architecture for the modeling ecosystem, encompassing credit risk, pricing, and loss forecasting.

• Collaborate with Portfolio Strategy, Engineering, Product, Underwriting, Sales, and Collections to spot opportunities and shape business strategy.

• Establish and uphold standards for model development, validation, code quality, and documentation.

• Make critical technical design choices organization-wide.

• Mentor data scientists at every level, including senior and lead team members.

• Convey technical concepts, trade-offs, and business implications to executives and non-technical stakeholders.

• Represent data science in strategic planning sessions.

• Design and enhance production machine learning pipelines and monitoring frameworks.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive experience in building and deploying credit risk models, particularly underwriting models, within fintech, lending, or financial services.

• Over 10 years of practical model development and deployment experience.

• Proficient in advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, including generalized linear models, gradient boosting, and deep learning.

• Demonstrated success in leading high-impact data science projects from uncertainty to production, yielding business results.

• Preferred experience with real-time models, decisioning engines, and production-grade machine learning pipelines.

• Expertise in Python, SQL, and Git.

• Experience in designing and deploying models on cloud platforms like AWS or SageMaker, including making architectural decisions.

• Preferred knowledge of workflow orchestration tools such as Metaflow.

• Strong grounding in statistics and machine learning.

• Ability to influence technical direction across teams and mentor senior technical personnel.

• Exceptional project management and communication skills, including the ability to present to executives.

• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities.

• Additional experience with cloud data warehouses like Snowflake and Databricks, Arize, Metaflow, SageMaker, decision engines like Taktile, and feature stores like Tecton is a plus.

• Bachelor's degree in Financial/Applied Math, Operations Research, Economics, and/or Statistics; a Master's or PhD is advantageous.

• Must have authorization to work for any employer in the US.

• Required to disclose if future visa sponsorship will be necessary.

🏝️ Benefits

• Flexible work location: remote, in-office, or a mix of both.

• Flexible working hours.

• Medical benefits.

• Dental benefits.

• Vision benefits.

• Commuter benefits.

• Flexible time-off policy.

• Paid parental leave.

• 401k matching for US employees.

• Wellness reimbursement.

• Volunteering days.

• Annual budget for professional development.

• Charitable donation matching.

• Virtual and in-person team events.

• Potential for an additional annual bonus of 12%.