Principal Data Scientist - Generative AI

Company Description

About SEEK

SEEK’s portfolio of diverse businesses make a positive impact on a truly global scale. Our purpose is to help people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and help organisations succeed. We create world-class technology solutions to connect more people to relevant employment, education, small business and volunteer opportunities. We have a culture of high-performance in our workplaces and celebrate the diversity of our employees who contribute to the success of our organisation.

Life at SEEK

SEEK’s purpose is at the centre of everything we do. Our SEEK, which defines the way we work, is all about what makes us unique and a little bit different. Passion, Team, Delivery and Future are our principles that drive innovation and creativity. SEEK strives to support employee wellbeing by providing an amazing experience at work which led us to being named AFR BOSS Top 10 Best Places to work in technology for the fourth year in a row. We are proud to work in an environment that's inclusive where everyone's unique ideas, experiences and perspectives are valued.

Our award-winning head office in Cremorne (just a 4 min walk from Richmond station) provides an exceptional space to collaborate with colleagues. The building provides sweeping views of the city, a games area, sit and stand desks at every workstation, modern end-of-trip facilities and Thursday night drinks which gives our people an opportunity to connect in a social setting.

Job Description

The Role

As a Principal Data Scientist in our Generative AI team, you will be a strategic and technical leader at the forefront of SEEK’s AI evolution. Working on complex, high-impact problems, you’ll help set the direction for Generative AI initiatives across the business, from R&D to real-world application.

Reporting to the Head of Generative AI, you’ll work closely with data scientists, product managers, designers, and engineers to develop innovative GenAI solutions that power both internal workflows and customer-facing experiences. You'll drive frameworks, methods, and decision-making that influence SEEK’s global AI strategy.

You’ll also play a key leadership role—mentoring other data scientists, guiding cross-functional initiatives, and advocating for responsible and effective use of AI across the organisation.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the research, development, and deployment of Generative AI solutions aligned with SEEK’s strategic priorities.

• Shape SEEK’s AI strategy by applying your domain expertise to guide multiple high-value initiatives.

• Develop and curate datasets to train and evaluate models across various use cases.

• Design innovative approaches to open-ended, unstructured problems, defining appropriate metrics, methodologies, and evaluation frameworks.

• Champion best practices in responsible AI and clearly communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

• Break down complex projects, manage timelines and priorities, and proactively remove roadblocks.

• Mentor and manage a team of data scientists, fostering a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and excellence.

• Influence executive stakeholders by translating deep technical insights into business-relevant recommendations.

The Team

You’ll be joining SEEK’s Generative AI team—a specialist practice of data scientists within our broader Artificial Intelligence & Analytics group.
We operate on a quarterly planning cycle, blending hands-on R&D with consultative partnerships across SEEK’s internal product and engineering teams. Our team culture values curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration, with regular rituals like weekly stand-ups, knowledge sharing, and retrospectives to foster learning and alignment.

Qualifications

Essential Qualifications, Skills, and Experience

• A MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field.

• 8+ years of professional experience developing and delivering AI/ML solutions.

• Deep understanding of the theory and practice of building, training, evaluating, and optimising AI/ML models.

• Proven track record of leading impactful AI initiatives that deliver measurable business outcomes.

• Excellent communication, leadership, and influencing skills—including the ability to translate complex technical concepts into plain language and engage stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership.

• Ability to adapt quickly and thrive in a dynamic, fast-evolving environment.

Desirable (but not essential)

• Experience leading complex AI/ML projects and managing multiple stakeholders.

• Deep technical knowledge of foundational Generative AI concepts: deep learning, transformer architectures, encoder/decoder models, pre-training and post-training techniques, reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and parameter-efficient fine-tuning (e.g. LoRA).

• Hands-on experience training or adapting large language models (LLMs).

• Practical experience building solutions using pre-trained LLMs, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, and orchestration frameworks.

• Exposure to conversational design principles and developing conversational AI systems.

Additional Information

Permanent Perks
At SEEK we offer:

• Annual Performance Bonus Plan
• Support of flexible working, including a mix of office and work from home days depending on your role.
• Paid and unpaid leave benefits including Personal Flexi Days and Volunteer Days, as well as the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Support for parents with 14 weeks paid primary carers leave and 2 weeks paid leave for partners

We know teams with diverse ideas, experiences and perspectives are more creative and are critical to ensuring effective delivery and innovating to enable our future success. As such, we welcome applications from people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences, especially as they relate to gender, sexual identity, culture, faith, disability and life stages. If you have the skills, curiosity and an adaptable mindset but don't meet every responsibility or qualification listed in this advertisement, please still get in touch with us.

Should you require any specific support or adjustments throughout the recruitment process and beyond, please advise us and we will be happy to assist.

For this role, only those candidates with the eligible right to work will be considered.

SEEK kindly requests no unsolicited resumes or approaches from recruitment agencies and will not be responsible for any associated fees.