Head of Customer Data Science

Division/Dept. 
Data & Analytics

Location 
Holborn Support Centre and Home

Reporting to 
Director of Customer & Loyalty Analytics

In a nutshell

We’re a business serving millions of customers a day, with the UK’s largest loyalty scheme and an ever-evolving set of digital platforms. All this equals over 1.2 billion transactions a year, presenting a volume, depth, and complexity of data that few can match.

We don’t think we’re exaggerating when we say we have the most exciting data set in the country. We’ve got data from billions of transactions and interactions for our teams to play with. From it, we build scalable, high-performance products using cutting-edge technology that give our customers an amazing experience. In an inclusive, agile environment, you’ll have the space to be curious, to experiment, and solve real-world challenges. And you’ll get to see your creations in the hands of millions of customers across the UK.

Our Data & Analytics team is undergoing a major transformation, and you will play a crucial role in enhancing how we use data and analytics to make decisions and run the business. This is a leadership role within our Customer & Loyalty team and will drive Machine Learning and Algorithm development for Sainsbury’s. You’ll unlock value and use your intense curiosity to find creative ways to land impactful solutions that directly support Sainsbury’s Next Level strategy.
                                          
More about the team and role

Across our wider Customer & Loyalty Analytics team we have over 100 Analysts and Data Scientists supporting across 3 key areas.

1. The delivery of our Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy across our Retail Brands (Sainsbury’s, Argos, Habitat, Tu and Nectar) using our unrivalled customer data to drive improved decision-making, offering highly personalised experiences for our customers.
2. Analytics and insight that delivers value and utility for our customers through our Nectar Coalition Partners including the likes of British Airways, Esso and American Express.
3. The monetisation of our analytics and media channels through our integrated loyalty, insights, and media services agency, Nectar360.

As the Head of Customer Data Science, you will lead a team of 15 Data Scientists delivering tangible commercial value across Customer & Loyalty through 3 distinct but interconnected teams:

• The Customer Value and Understanding (CVU) team that develops models and analytics to understand our customers' shopping habits, preferences, and affinities, helping the business to serve them best.
• The Customer Decisioning team who build and run our personalisation capability across Sainsbury's including our personalised pricing proposition Your Nectar Prices, Nectar Bonus points and other highly personalised offers and content with over 300m personalised offers allocated to customers every week!
• The newly formed Nectar360 Data Science team responsible for delivering media measurement and multi-touch attribution modelling across our Sainsbury’s and Argos supplier media activations and as part of our new media product suite.

The significant value generated, and rapidly expanding scope of these Data Science teams requires a Leader capable of driving the technical roadmap of the teams whilst delivering against stretching commercial objectives and the broader Customer & Loyalty Analytics strategy.

This Head of Customer Data Science role will own the overall Data Science roadmap across Customer & Loyalty Analytics, identifying synergies across the CVU and Decisioning teams as well as opportunities to broaden the scope and impact our Data Science capability on the wider business. In conjunction with their Data Science Managers, Product and Programme Owners they will be responsible for delivering optimised decisioning across all customer touchpoints. The role will also build closer relationships with other Data Science teams across the business, helping to define best practise and drive standardisation.

What you need to do

• Lead the data science function in Customer & Loyalty, oversee the roadmaps of CVU, Customer Decisioning and Nectar360 and set the strategic direction.
• Provide technical thought leadership through a deep understanding of the application of statistics and Machine Learning in the context of Customer Decisioning and be at the forefront of Data Science tooling and techniques.
• Establish and develop the right mix of skills and people within and across the data science teams and set the priorities to deliver against our ambitious targets.
• Enable the teams to grow their impact and influence through building positive relationships with existing and future stakeholders across Marketing, Finance, Commercial, Retail & Digital and Sainsburys Tech.
• Ownership of the models and algorithms which control budget distribution of multi-million-pound programmes like Your Nectar Prices – optimising these to deliver commercial and customer value whilst remaining compliant with the latest data and marketing regulations.
• Oversee the continued transition towards centralised decisioning of 1:1 personalised offers across all channels. 
• Enable Nectar’s Media Measurement Platform to meet its commercial targets through the development and maintenance of robust and efficient measurement and multi-touch attribution models.
• Raise the profile and increase the usage of the broad set of customer models and segmentations developed, looking for novel use cases which drive commercial value.
• Work in collaboration with Product, Engineering and CDO colleagues as required to define and land the requirements of the new capability, including an efficient ML Ops platform, production pipelines and documentation.
• Be an active member of the Customer & Loyalty Analytics Leadership Team with collective responsibility for the strategy of the broader team as well as culture and development of ~100 colleagues spanning multiple brands, and multiple sites. 
• Play an active role in the Analytics community across the group – sharing best practice and learning with other divisions.

What you need to know and show

• An inquisitive and passionate problem-solver with a drive to succeed in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment.
• Confident in handling complexity and ambiguity, effectively partnering with the business to deliver value through commercial acumen and compelling communication.
• Passionate about high-quality data storytelling to articulate the value of data science in business decisions.
• Proven experience in leading a data science function is a must, elevating team performance through coaching and upskilling, and focusing on delivering tangible business value.
• Experience in establishing a Test & Learn culture for continuous optimisation and improvement.
• Strong commercial acumen and ability to collaborate with business stakeholders to ensure commercially sound programs.
• A genuine customer-centric mindset, using data to understand diverse customer bases better.
• Experience with AWS, Snowflake, DBT, Azure Machine Learning Studio, and MicroStrategy, and experience of balancing experimentation and cost on cloud platforms.
• Expertise in data science, keeping the team updated on the latest algorithms and technologies.
• Strong understanding of data governance principles in algorithmic decisioning and direct marketing.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and budget holders, demonstrating the commercial impact of algorithmic decisioning.

What decisions I can make

• How to turn our complex problems into modern algorithmic products.
• How to tell the story of the product, its impact and the business transformation required.
• How to recruit, develop, train, and unify your team and the data science community of practice.
• How to drive data science excellence into the areas you work with.
• How to structure your team and resource it.
• How to remove blockers from your team delivering to our outcomes and continually improving.
• Autonomy to distribute budgets in the most effective way to deliver against business and customer outcomes including Your Nectar Prices, Digital Nectar Product and Basket Offers with a combined budget of over £90m.

#LI-SA1
 

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re one of the biggest supermarkets in the UK with one of the largest websites. So marketing here really happens at scale. We move a lot faster than you’d think too, across Brand Planning, Brand Comms and Creative, Digital Marketing, CRM and Loyalty, Nectar 360, Insights, and Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. More people shopping with us each week means more interactions. And thanks to data insight, we understand customers in a way that almost nobody else does. We work alongside incredible brand partners and the best agencies around. So if you have a passion to learn, grow and experience new teams, come and explore it all with us. 

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: 

  

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 65% of salary, depending on how we perform (in cash and shares). 

  

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme. 

  

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. 

  

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply). 

 

Sainsbury’s company vision
Our vision is to be the most trusted retailer, where people love to work and shop. That means harnessing the talent, creativity and diversity of our colleagues to ensure that customers receive great service every time they shop with us.
If you would like to hear more about our vision and values, be sure to visit our corporate page.
We invest in training, development and multiple initiatives to ensure our teams feel enabled to offer the best shopping experience to our customers and that Sainsbury’s is truly a ‘Great Place to Work’.