We are seeking an experienced Director - Data Science to lead our advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI initiatives. This role requires a strong balance of hands-on technical expertise, strategic leadership, and team management. You will drive innovation using personalization and recommendation engines, search optimization, and cutting-edge generative AI solutions to deliver high-impact business outcomes.
Leadership And Strategy
The core responsibilities for the job include the following:
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of data scientists, ML engineers, and analysts.
- Define the data science vision, roadmap, and strategy aligned with business objectives.
- Partner closely with product, engineering, marketing, and business leaders to identify high-value opportunities for AI/ML.
- Promote data-driven decision-making across the organization.
Technical Ownership
- Provide hands-on guidance in designing, developing, and deploying advanced ML and AI models.
- Oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of data science projects: problem scoping, data exploration, modeling, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.
- Drive innovation in Personalization and Recommendation Systems (e. g., ranking models, user intent modeling, and collaborative and content-based filtering).
- Search Algorithms and Retrieval Optimization (semantic search, vector search, and query expansion).
- Generative AI (LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, content generation, automation).
- Ensure scalable, high-quality production ML systems in collaboration with engineering.
Project And Stakeholder Management
- Prioritize and manage multiple complex projects with cross-functional teams.
- Translate business needs into technical requirements and actionable insights.
- Communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders effectively.
Operational Excellence
- Establish best practices for experimentation, model governance, MLOps, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
- Develop frameworks for model explainability, fairness, and compliance.
- Optimize processes to improve team efficiency and output quality.
Requirements
- 11-15 years of experience in data science, machine learning, or AI roles, with at least 4-6 years in leadership or management.
- Proven track record of building and deploying ML models at scale.
- Deep expertise in: personalization and recommendation systems, search, information retrieval and ranking, and generative AI (LLMs, transformers, RAG, and fine-tuning).
- Strong proficiency in Python and ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn).
- Experience with distributed data processing (Spark, Hadoop) and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP).
- Hands-on experience with MLOps tools: MLflow, Kubeflow, Airflow, etc.
- Exceptional problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills.
- Ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.
Preferred Qualifications
- Masters in computer science, data science, machine learning, statistics, or a related field.
- Experience working in product-led tech companies.
- Experience managing data science teams.
- Familiarity with real-time ML systems and large-scale experimentation platforms.
This job was posted by Sudeshna Mohanty from ZEE - Technology & Innovation.
