Research Scientist, Customer Program (Fintech AI) - Rakuten Institute of Technology Worldwide (RIT)

Job Description:

Department Overview

Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT) https://rit.rakuten.com, the core AI research wing of Rakuten, is spread across six geographical locations including Tokyo, Singapore, Boston, San Mateo, Bengaluru, and Paris. This division consists of AI research scientists with specialization in machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision and data mining.

Fintech AI is one of the research topics at RIT and is positioned as a critical research area within the Rakuten Group, particularly in its FinTech businesses. Research scientists develop algorithms related to credit scoring, risk scoring, and customer credit evaluation.
 

As a Research Scientist, you will work on developing new credit models and improving existing ones by analyzing various types of data, such as customer attributes, behavioral data, and delinquency data, as well as through discussions with business stakeholders. When releasing new models, research scientists are responsible for conducting offline evaluations using historical data and designing online proof-of-concept (POC) experiments.

The role of a research scientist requires the following:

(1) Understanding business challenges and providing appropriate solutions to contribute to improved business performance.
(2) Identifying promising research from the latest studies that could benefit the business in the long term and applying it to real-world environments.
 

For this particular position, we are seeking Research Scientists who can apply their expertise in one or more of the following areas to real-world business scenarios:

- Building embeddings using Deep Learning

- Multi-task Learning/Transfer Learning

- Causal Inference

Additionally, to achieve the goals outlined in (1) and (2), research scientists are expected to adopt a hypothesis-driven approach, which may involve conducting ad-hoc data analyses repeatedly as needed.

Position:

Why We Hire

Fintech AI group is seeking research scientists with a background in data analysis, algorithm design, and implementation, who can work together on the above research topics.

Position Details

- Define short/middle-term direction of projects while aligning with business, product and engineering team

- Design algorithms to solve defined research problems. Also, appropriately implement the designed algorithms and evaluate their performance

- Work with Project Management team to gather business requirements, define suitable KPIs and validate if the solutions meets/exceeds the requirements/KPIs

- Support engineering teams and product teams to adapt prototypes in production

- Support junior-level research scientists

- Contribute to the advancement of science via writing papers, attending conferences, submitting patent proposals and verifying the feasibility in the business applications

Mandatory Qualifications:

- Ph.D. in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

- Ability to effectively communicate with research scientists, engineers, and business personnel in English

- Ability to work independently and drive projects forward

- Proficiency to analyze data and build ML/AI model using Python

- Basic understanding of statistics, machine learning and deep learning with some practical experience
- Development experience in a Unix/Linux environment

- Proficient in code management (e.g., Git)

- Interest and curiosity about user behavior and credit scoring

Desired Qualifications:

- Strong international publication records

- Demonstrated project achievements, such as GitHub repositories

- Experience leading research members for more than two years

- Ability to effectively communicate with business personnel in Japanese

- Knowledge in at least one of the following areas:

・Building embeddings using Deep Learning

・Multi-task Learning/Transfer Learning

・Causal Inference

Other Information:

Additional information on English Qualification

English (Overall - 4 - Fluent)

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