Lead Data Scientist

Lead Data Scientist

At Sanoma Learning, we all share a deep-rooted passion for education and are committed to support teachers to help all students to reach their potential, so they can be at their best in class.

We are proud of the impact we make together across Europe, local as well as international. As our teams and the scope of our impact grows, so do the opportunities for us to learn from each other – across country borders and areas of expertise. With over 3.000 colleagues, we work on seamlessly integrated print, digital and blended learning solutions to help teachers and schools develop the talents of every child.  Our people are passionate and committed and always willing to go the extra mile for students, teachers, schools, our shareholders and each other. 

We believe that Data and AI can uncover multiple opportunities for education, including both internal efficiencies and new product opportunities; currently AI is a priority theme for Sanoma Learning.

Lead Data Scientist

Sanoma Learning is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to strengthen our AI capabilities within our permanent product teams. This senior role is ideal for a highly experienced and hands-on technical expert who thrives in a dynamic, multi-team environment, delivering robust, customer-facing AI solutions that serve millions of students and teachers across Europe.

You will work across 2–3 product teams simultaneously, acting as the AI technical lead in each. You’ll oversee design and implementation of AI components in real-world products (with a strong focus on GenAI), provide technical direction, and ensure consistency in architectural and ethical standards. In parallel, you will mentor junior data scientists and drive AI excellence across Sanoma Learning by shaping best practices and supporting other teams as a subject matter expert.

This is a permanent role reporting to the Senior Director, Data and AI, embedded in a company deeply committed to building impactful, trustworthy AI for education.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as AI lead across 2–3 customer-facing product teams, guiding the design, development, and integration of AI features into production systems.
• Deliver robust AI-powered solutions, especially with GenAI (LLMs, RAG, agent-based flows), ensuring they are scalable, maintainable, and ethically sound.
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and domain experts to translate educational needs into impactful AI features for teachers and learners.
• Ensure that LLM and AI components are privacy-aware, legally compliant (GDPR, EU AI Act), and auditable.
• Lead technical decision-making on data pipelines, model architecture, vector stores, orchestration layers, and evaluation frameworks.
• Promote MLOps best practices (testing, CI/CD, IaC) and help product teams achieve production-grade reliability and efficiency.
• Mentor and develop junior data scientists across Sanoma Learning, supporting their growth through code reviews, knowledge sharing, and structured learning initiatives.
• Serve as a trusted internal expert, advising additional teams on AI approaches and accelerating AI maturity across the company.
• Contribute to our AI community of practice, maintaining shared tools, documentation, and reusable components.
• Stay ahead of developments in GenAI, applied machine learning, and responsible AI — bringing new ideas into our roadmap where relevant.

Education

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Additional certifications in cloud engineering (e.g., AWS/GCP), MLOps, or GenAI tooling are an advantage.

Experience

• 5+ years of experience in AI engineering, applied machine learning, or data science, including production-level work in customer-facing digital products.
• 2+ years of experience with GenAI, LLM integration, and real-world use of agentic systems.
• Experience working in or with permanent product teams, preferably in edtech or B2C digital platforms.
• Strong record of mentoring and capability-building within data teams.
• Solid background in cloud-native development, including containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, K8s, Airflow).
• Knowledge of privacy and regulatory frameworks relevant to AI in Europe (e.g., GDPR, AI Act).
• Prior experience in education technology or publishing is a strong plus.

Skills

• Deep understanding of transformer-based models, prompt engineering, and generative AI workflows.
• Strong programming skills in Python, with experience using frameworks like LangChain, LangGraph, OpenAI API.
• Expertise in retrieval systems, embedding generation, and vector search integration.
• Competence in building agentic pipelines, integrating tools and services for complex task resolution.
• Strong command of MLOps principles, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code (IaC) for deploying and maintaining scalable systems.
• Ability to evaluate model performance using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across product, business, and technical teams.
• Self-driven, pragmatic, and excited by the challenge of building real-world AI solutions that deliver tangible value.

Personal Attributes:

• Data-driven decision-making approach
• Proactive and positive “can-do” attitude, demonstrating initiative and resilience.
• Strong organizational skills, adept at managing multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Self-motivated, consistently seeking opportunities for improvement and innovation.
• Passionate about opportunities in Data and AI space

About Sanoma Learning

How do you prepare students for the world, engage their curiosity and inspire them to grow? That is the main question of teachers all around the world. At Sanoma Learning, it has always been our mission to help to find and develop best-in-class answers to this question. If you join us, it means that you embark on an exciting journey to help shape the future of learning for primary, secondary and vocational education. We believe that your journey is our success as a company.

Sanoma Learning is a leading K12 European learning company, operating in 12 countries. Our learning products and services enable and support teachers and schools to develop the talents of every child to reach their potential. By offering printed and digital learning content, as well as digital learning and teaching platforms for primary, secondary and vocational education, we want to grow our positive impact on learning across Europe. With over 3000 employees, we help shape the future of education for 25+ million of students.

So, are you ready to start your journey to help shape the future of learning and help teachers to support all students to reach their potential?

Sanoma Learning is an equal opportunity employer; we are committed to inclusion and diversity, ensure equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other characteristics.

About Sanoma Learning

How do you prepare students for the world, engage their curiosity and inspire them to grow? That is the main question of teachers all around the world. At Sanoma Learning, it has always been our mission to help to find and develop best-in-class answers to this question. If you join us, it means that you embark on an exciting journey to help shape the future of learning for primary, secondary and vocational education. We believe that your journey is our success as a company.

Sanoma Learning is a leading K12 European learning company, operating in 12 countries. Our learning products and services enable and support teachers and schools to develop the talents of every child to reach their potential. By offering printed and digital learning content, as well as digital learning and teaching platforms for primary, secondary and vocational education, we want to grow our positive impact on learning across Europe. With over 3000 employees, we help shape the future of education for 25+ million of students.

So, are you ready to start your journey to help shape the future of learning and help teachers to support all students to reach their potential?

Sanoma Learning is an equal opportunity employer; we are committed to inclusion and diversity, ensure equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other characteristics.