Principal Data Scientist

Self Financial is a venture-backed, high-growth FinTech company with a mission to increase economic inclusion and financial resilience by empowering people to build credit and build savings.

We're looking for people who share our passion and are driven to tackle challenges, find solutions and make the financial space better for the communities we serve.

Our team is passionate about challenging the status quo of the credit industry by providing people accessible tools to take control of their credit. Executing on our mission requires deep collaboration across our teams to ensure our products reach the people who can benefit from them the most, particularly the 100 million+ Americans who have no or low credit.

We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To that end, we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool.

About the role

Join Self, a pioneering fintech company revolutionizing credit building and financial wellness for millions of underserved Americans. As a Principal Data Scientist on the Analytics & Data Science team, you'll play a critical role in building a data-driven culture and developing innovative solutions that empower customers on their journey to financial freedom.

Your work will directly impact millions of customers by shaping product & marketing development, personalizing user experiences, and driving financial inclusion. You will play a key role in establishing data science standards and maturity along with partners in Credit Risk Data Science, Architecture, and MLOps.

What you’ll do

• Use your machine learning expertise to tackle high-impact challenges like helping customers achieve their financial goals, developing a personalized financial recommendation engine, identifying transactions a customer can use to build credit, optimizing our marketing spend and segmentation, etc.
• Own machine learning models that impact metrics such as Marketing CAC, Conversion Rate, DAU/WAU/MAU, Retention, Cross-Sell, and RPU.
• Feature engineering utilizing data such as consumer behavior, clickstream, credit bureau, transaction history, etc
• Partner with Marketing, Product, and Engineering to drive model adoption and iterate on existing and future models based on business needs.
• Build the foundation for Data Science including standards, processes, and workflows
• Partner with Architecture and MLOps to deploy, monitor, and update production machine learning models
• Use your technical capabilities to drive growth and customer impact
• Stay up to date on the latest advancements in data science, machine learning, and AI
• Communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences

The Ideal Candidate 

• Cares about not only using the latest innovative techniques but that their work creates impact and change for customers
• Embraces ownership and drives things over the finish line autonomously
• Has demonstrable experience developing machine learning models that have driven notable incremental revenue and customer impact
• Has expertise in extracting and engineering key features from large data sets
• Is effective in navigating ambiguity to ultimately solve problems in a reasonable timeframe
• Is comfortable working in a small team setting
• Is an effective communicator to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Has prior experience with Fintech or building machine learning models within the Financial Industry

What’s exciting about the role

• You’ll have a direct impact on customers' ability to improve their financial lives via your machine learning/AI models
• You’ll have the ability to help build new products and experiences that directly impact millions of customers
• You’ll play a key role in establishing and scaling the data science and machine learning practice at Self
• Gain deep expertise in the fintech domain, working with unique datasets and cutting-edge technologies. Collaborate with industry experts and contribute to the advancement of financial technology
• You’ll work with a team dedicated to advancing analytics concepts and a culture that focuses on urgency, ownership, and collaboration
• You'll have the ability to execute autonomously
• You’ll have the chance to mentor teammates and build team culture
• You’ll learn how business decisions flow through the entirety of the business

What we want you to have

• 10+ years of Data Science / Machine Learning  experience
• 5+ years experience with Git, Gitlab, Github, version control
• Advanced degree (Masters, PhD) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or a related quantitative discipline
• Strong expertise in data manipulation and analysis using SQL and  Python, R, or similar
• Experience with AWS Machine Learning Services and a tech stack including s3, Glue, Redshift, Sagemaker, and Airflow
• Experience with libraries such as NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Scikit-Learn, Matplotlib, etc
• Basic working knowledge of data warehousing, data modeling, and machine learning
• Experience with propensity modeling, lead scoring, clustering, recommendation systems, causal inference, genAI
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization
• A self-starter mindset, with a strong sense of ownership, and the ability to work autonomously in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment

Base salary range: $180,000 - $200,000 annually.  Individual pay is based on factors unique to each candidate, including skill set, experience, and other job-related reasons.

Benefits and Perks:

We have the compensation and benefits you expect. But there's one thing that Self Financial can offer that many companies cannot: we can positively change the world, while making a profit. We are a team of Builders, empowering our customers to build their dreams. We have a Do the Right Thing ethos in all that we do, and we hope you value that approach, too. 

Our perks include:

• Company Equity in the form of Stock Options
• Quarterly performance-based bonuses
• Generous employer-paid health, vision and dental insurance coverage
• Flexible vacation policy
• Educational assistance
• Free gym membership
• Casual dress code
• Team building events and activities
• Remote work arrangements/ flexible work schedule
• Paid parental leave 

Self Financial requires all employees hired to successfully pass a background check.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.