Senior Data Scientist

Division / Dept
Data & Analytics

Location
Holborn and Home

Reporting to
Data Science Manager

Nutshell

We have ~90 Analysts and Data Scientists within Customer & Loyalty Analytics focusing on a wide range of business questions, and we have 30 million known customers to play with.

This team is focussed on building our personalised customer decisioning engine, known internally as Krang. We are the brain behind an optimised selection of offers, mechanics and discounts used to drive desired customer behaviour. We do some of Sainsbury’s most complex modelling, forecasting, tool building, and insights-generation and use agile working methodologies to make sure we’re prioritising the right outcomes. Our Data Scientists are critical in supporting Sainsbury’s to be successful in our corporate strategy of Connecting to our Customers.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will be designing and evolving personalised decisioning to drive both customer loyalty and commercial value.

What will you be doing?

Specifically, this Senior Data Scientist role will be supporting the team in the following: 

• Lead on the technical development of algorithms and pipelines that will deliver against Krang’s strategic objectives.
• Iterate our modelling and optimisation capabilities, identifying the most appropriate techniques to enable continuous learning, expansion to novel mechanics, audiences and channels and the transition towards real-time decisioning.
• Ensure the analytical models we develop and deploy align to engineering principals around efficiency, on-demand, and automation.
• Become the recognised expert in Data Science techniques used for Krang Decisioning and be opinionated on future approaches, including state of the art techniques where appropriate.
• Support Junior Data Scientists in defining projects and analytical approaches, as well as reviewing their code.
• Willing to lead a sub-team on tactical projects working with stakeholders to define goals and Junior Data Scientists to deliver impact at pace.
• You will demonstrate store closeness and support our stores during peak trading periods
• You will actively contribute to our vibrant Data and Analytics community of over 800 colleagues, providing a view on new techniques and approaches that can drive positive change in wider teams.

What are we looking for?

• At least 5 years’ experience in a data science role.
• Extensive programming ability across Python and strong ability to use SQL, with a proven experience of developing complex solutions in a corporate environment. 
• Excellent skills and statistical foundation in concepts such as linear optimisation, predictive modelling, clustering and time series analysis. 
• Experience designing and implementing price optimisation problems is desirable but not essential. 
• Knowledge and experience of: model building, statistical analysis, hypothesis generation, experiment design and execution, either gained through an advanced quantitative degree, or equivalent practical experience in an industry setting.
• Experience using cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure and associated ML tools is desirable but not essential. 
• Experience using Jupyter notebooks and version control within a team using Git. 
• A curious problem solver who is proactive at developing their technical skills. 
• Business acumen and commercial awareness.
• Ability to articulate required outcomes and present analytics work succinctly. 
• Independence to achieve results and work under your own guidance and initiative.
• Able to lead technical conversations with data engineers. 
• Curiosity, scepticism and attention to detail regarding data quality, samples, bias and ethics. 
• A strong awareness and understanding of technology trends and direction in Data Science, analytics and AI. 
• You will champion our valued behaviours: ‘Own it’, ‘Make it Better’ and ‘Be human’
• Ability to support in the development, training and mentoring of others

What decisions will you make?

• Devise test and learn campaigns for Krang’s decisioning on offers.
• Devise new offer types and decisioning pipelines.
• Recommend the approach to delivering the business outcomes of Krang.
• Decide the most appropriate way to approach key analysis questions, and how to resolve statistical issues.
• Develop and present recommendations to senior business stakeholders based on data and analytics.

Support we will provide

• A vibrant team to bounce ideas off and to support you with specialised knowledge (technical, stats/Data Science or business processes)
• Mentoring from Data Science Managers.
• Cloud computing infrastructure (AWS)
• Automation, and orchestration support from our integrated engineering team within Krang.

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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’.