Principal Data Scientist (AI)

• Greenfield AI build – shape the tools, direction, and standards from the ground up
• Strategic role – work across marketing, product, and asset management to solve high-value problems
• Lead the way – set the standard for modern data science and mentor others to follow your lead

Insignia Financial is at an exciting stage in our AI journey. We've developed strong foundations and are now scaling up a purpose-built AI Centre of Excellence - deliberately, with intent, from the ground up. This isn’t AI for the sake of AI.  We've taken a governance-first approach and locked in our policies and framework. Now we’re moving to execution and meaningful growth. Backed by Insignia Financials’ vision of being AI enabled and becoming one of the most efficient companies in Australia by 2030, we’re investing in the infrastructure that matters - enterprise-ready services, microservice architecture, and embedded AI capabilities that enhance how the business operates. We’re cutting through the hype and taking a disciplined, business-led approach to AI adoption, focused on building scalable, practical AI that delivers. 
Join us at a key stage in building our AI capability - where your voice will shape direction, your ideas will get traction, and your work will help define how AI lives and breathes at Insignia Financial.

The opportunity to join our team

We’re looking for a Principal Data Scientist to lead the next stage of AI-driven transformation at Insignia. This is a hands-on, high-impact role where you’ll design, build, and deploy real-world AI solutions from ideation through to execution.
You’ll sit at the intersection of advanced analytics and commercial strategy: surfacing insight, solving problems, and shaping how AI is applied across marketing, product, and asset management. Think less ‘academic R&D lab’, more ‘let’s build something powerful and production-ready’. This is greenfield work. You’ll define the approach, the tools, and what good looks like.

In this role you will partner with senior stakeholders and business leads to answer the questions they don’t know how to ask yet. You’ll mine for patterns others miss, build scalable models, and show the business what modern data science should look like.

• Lead ideation and model development across a wide range of domains, starting with enterprise-wide marketing propensity modelling.
• Spot gaps in data pipelines and identify untapped data sources to drive better models and smarter decisions.
• Prototype and test multiple models (yes, multiple), and push the best into production.
• Coach and mentor other data scientists.
• Partner with stakeholders to define the problem, validate assumptions, and guide execution.
• Build for industrialisation – repeatable, maintainable, explainable models that won’t fall apart at scale.
• Help build our DS capability, shape the culture, and set the standard for AI at Insignia.
• Work with business-aligned teams (Product Owners, Delivery Leads, Execs) to align solutions with commercial outcomes.

What You Bring to This Role

This isn’t your first AI rodeo. You’ve led deployments, built credibility with business units, and shown what good looks like when data science is done right.

• Experience in data science, with demonstrated leadership (formal or informal).
• Deep knowledge of statistical methods and ML techniques (e.g. SVM, decision trees, logistic regression).
• Proficiency in Python and/or R. SQL is a given. If you don’t code, this isn’t for you.
• Strong understanding of deep learning, NLP, and frameworks like Scikit-learn. Bonus: RAG and modern retrieval techniques.
• Hands-on experience with big data platforms (BigQuery, Snowflake) and data modelling concepts (e.g. data vault, star schema).
• Strong grasp of how to communicate complex models and insights to non-technical audiences.

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience working in financial services, consulting, or asset management.
• Exposure to cloud-based ML platforms (GCP, Vertex AI ideal – but not a deal-breaker).
• Background in building AI/ML capabilities from the ground up in a commercial setting.

Find the better way

What gets us excited about working here? Helping people feel good about their money as one of Australia’s leading financial wellbeing organisations. From those starting out to those retiring. As your team, we’ll show up for you and together we will create financial wellbeing for every Australian. Because we know people who are confident about their financial future live better lives.

If this sounds like your kind of career, you sound like our kind of person. With us, you’ll do work that builds your technical know-how and challenges our entire industry to move forward. Along the way, you’ll be free to explore new ideas and technology, solve problems in a team, and independently to get great things done. Around here, we like to call it “putting our fingerprints on the future”.

People-inspired tech

Deep expertise combined with creativity can take on the trickiest of problems. Join our team of brilliant minds and mentors as we explore our way to innovation and apply technology in more human ways than ever.

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To Apply

Read more here about why you should join our team.

Applicants will be required to provide evidence of their eligibility to work in Australia, and at a minimum be required to undertake police and basic credit checks as a condition of employment.

Please note that applications from agencies will not be considered at this time.

We acknowledge and celebrate the richness that individual differences bring to our team. If you need assistance or an adjustment during the application process, please reach out and let us know.