Data Scientist (Hybrid)

Company Description

Fastmarkets is an industry-leading price-reporting agency (PRA) and information provider for global commodities, providing price data, news, analytics and events for the agriculture, forest products, metals and mining and new-generation energy markets.

Fastmarkets' data is critical for customers seeking to understand and predict dynamic, sometimes opaque markets, enabling trading and risk management. Fastmarkets is a global business with a history dating back to 1865 and is built on trust and deep market knowledge. It has more than 600 employees spread across global locations in the UK, US, China, India, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, Finland and beyond. 

Job Description

The Role

• The Data Scientist will play a pivotal role in partnering with commodity subject matter experts to develop new forecasts and data sets, while also transforming the company’s existing commodity price forecasting and benchmarking capabilities into scalable, efficient solutions using Python, R, and other advanced analytics platforms. This role is central to enhancing the accuracy, agility, efficiency and transparency of forecasting processes. The Data Scientist will also lead the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to uncover patterns, improve predictive performance, increase automation and efficiency, and develop new products and tools. By bridging traditional methods with new technologies, the Data Scientist will help drive innovation and operational excellence in a data-driven environment. Key metrics for success in this position include delivering timely updates to forecasting models and data products, ensuring measurable improvements in forecast accuracy for key commodity benchmarks and successfully deploying AI-powered analytics tools with minimal issues, while maintaining strong stakeholder engagement and communication.

  The ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced and innovative environment, have a can-do attitude,  and can juggle a wide variety of tasks and projects.

  Principal accountabilities

• Modernize Forecasting Models – Support rebuilding and enhancing existing Excel-based commodity price forecasting models using Python, R, or other advanced analytics tools to improve scalability, maintainability, and performance.
• Develop New Models and Analysis – Develop new forecasts and related data sets that drive business insights and supports decision-making for Fastmarkets clients.
• Integrate Artificial Intelligence - Design and implement AI and machine learning models, including generative AI and LLMs to enhance forecasting accuracy, automate insight generation, develop intelligent data products, and create conversational analytics interfaces, such as Chatbots and Agents.
• Data Pipeline Development - Develop robust data pipelines to ingest, clean, and transform large datasets from internal and external sources for use in forecasting and cost benchmarking models.
• Model Validation and Performance Monitoring - Establish validation frameworks and performance metrics to ensure model reliability and transparency.
• Stakeholder Collaboration - Partner with commodity subject matter experts to understand their forecasting processes and techniques, translate them into intuitive technical solutions, and communicate insights effectively.
• Support Analytics Product Development – Develop new and innovative data products that complement forecast models to drive business insights and supports decision-making for Fastmarkets clients.
• Documentation and Knowledge Sharing - Maintain clear documentation of models, methodologies, and assumptions, and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

Key interfaces

The Data Scientist is a critical member of Fastmarkets Analytics, a global team of 90+ analysts, economists and engineers at Fastmarkets that produce commodity forecasts, cost and emissions benchmarking, and related data.

• Partner with Analysts and Economists to translate commodity market expertise into robust, data-driven forecasting and benchmarking models.
• Collaborate closely with the Technology and Data Operations teams, including full stack and data engineers, to ensure seamless integration of data pipelines, scalable infrastructure for model deployment, and alignment on data governance and quality standards.
• Partner with data scientists across Fastmarkets to align methodologies, share domain-specific insights, and co-develop scalable models that support enterprise-wide analytics initiatives and foster a unified data strategy.
• Partner with the Product team to translate customer needs into data-driven features and functionality, ensuring that new data products align with market requirements and deliver measurable value to B2B clients.

Qualifications

We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission to provide the world’s leading and most trusted price reporting, events, and intelligence service for the markets we serve. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully.

If you are open-minded, curious, resilient, solutions-oriented and committed to promoting equality, then read on...

KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

We are looking for an individual who is highly motivated, driven, and have a passion to be part of a fast-paced, successful team. Being a strong team player is also important as well as someone who is happy to work flexibly.

• Proficiency in Python, R, or similar languages, familiarity with data science libraries (e.g., pandas, scikit-learn, statsmodels, Prophet)
• Experience applying Artificial Intelligence techniques, including generative AI and large language models (LLMs).
• Experience with SQL and Snowflake for querying and managing large datasets and Snowpark for Python for data processing, engineering, and machine learning
• Familiarity with dbt Cloud or similar tools for transforming data
• Strong foundation in statistics, econometrics, and machine learning, with a focus on time series forecasting and predictive modelling a plus.

If you're excited about the role but your experience, skills or qualifications don't perfectly align, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Additional Information

Our Values

Fastmarkets people come from all different walks of life. It’s this mix of brilliant personalities, experiences and insights that gives us that warm, open, and friendly culture you can feel as soon as you meet us. But however wonderfully different we all are, there are six things we all have in common – and they form our Fastmarkets values.

Created by our own employees to reflect some of the personal traits that Fastmarkets people have, our values are key to what makes our culture unique. They reflect who each of us are and they're embedded in everything we do. Our values are:

• METRICS DRIVEN. We use insights to improve our customers’ experience and our business performance
   
• ACCOUNTABLE. We are accountable to ourselves and those we work with: we keep our promises and get things done
   
• GROWTH MINDSET. This value enables us to be nimble to the changing realities and operate with a sense of urgency
   
• INCLUSIVE. We are inclusive and respectful, celebrating each of us and giving everyone a deep sense of belonging with the desire to bring their best self to work every day.
   
• CUSTOMER CENTRIC. We are customer-centric in all that we do
   
• COLLABORATIVE. We are collaborative, able to work across teams and capitalise on the diversity of intellect, perspectives, and experiences.

You’ve read a little about us – now it’s over to you!

If you like what you’ve read so far and think you can see yourself as a Fastmarkets person, it’s time to fill in your application form. This form is an important part of the selection process: it’s used to determine whether or not you’ll be chosen to have an interview and acts as a basis for the questions we’ll ask you on the day.

It’s vital that you try to capture all the relevant information we have asked for on the form so we can get a good feel for who you are and why you’re great.