Principal Data Scientist

Rakbank; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 360,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pay for performance

Diverse workforce

Career development

Work with top minds

Job summary

Rakbank in Abu Dhabi is looking for a senior data scientist to lead the development and deployment of advanced machine learning solutions powering personalized customer decisioning. You will drive scalable models, robust pipelines, and data-driven insights across the organization.

The role combines hands-on technical work with leadership, mentoring other data scientists, and collaborating with product managers, engineers, and business stakeholders to deliver measurable business impact.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field including Econometrics, Actuarial Science, Maths/Statistics, Computer Science, etc.
• 10 years' experience in a senior data scientist position.
• Modelling experience including knowledge of Cloud and GenAI.
• Strong Analytics experience in the bank sector is an advantage.

Responsibilities

• Lead development and deployment of advanced ML solutions powering personalized customer decisioning.
• Build robust ML pipelines and scalable models for production use.
• Collaborate with product managers, engineers, and business stakeholders.
• Mentor senior data scientists and drive ML lifecycle best practices.

Skills

Python

Distributed computing

ML pipelines

CI/CD

Model monitoring

GenAI

Leadership

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Econometrics, Statistics, CS

Tools

Airflow

MLflow

Kubeflow

Spark

Dask

Ray

Kafka

Flink

Job description

Job Purpose

JOB DESCRIPTION

To lead the development and deployment of advanced machine learning solutions that power personalized customer decisioning, while driving best‑in‑class modeling, MLOps, and data engineering practices. This role combines hands‑on technical expertise with leadership to deliver scalable models, robust pipelines, and high‑impact insights across the organization.

Modeling Expertise

What You Will Bring:

• Advanced experience in building and deploying propensity models for cross-sell and upsell.
• Deep understanding of Next Best Action / Next Best Offer engines.
• Strong grasp of supervised learning, uplift modeling, and causal inference.

Programming & Engineering

• Expert-level coding in Python (mandatory); familiarity with R or Scala is a plus.
• Experience with distributed computing (Spark, Dask, Ray).
• Proficient in writing production-grade ML pipelines using tools like Airflow, MLflow, or Kubeflow.
• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices: version control, CI/CD, testing.

Data Infrastructure

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift).
• Strong SQL skills; ability to optimize queries and manage large datasets.

MLOps & Deployment

• Experience deploying models to production via APIs or streaming systems (Kafka, Flink).
• Proficient in model versioning, experiment tracking, and deployment using MLflow, SageMaker, or Vertex AI.

Monitoring & Observability

• Ability to set up model monitoring, drift detection, and alerting systems using Prometheus, Grafana, Evidently, or custom dashboards.
• Experience with logging frameworks and performance profiling for ML services.

GenAI (Preferred)

• Experience with LLMs, embeddings, prompt engineering, and vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Pinecone).
• Ability to integrate GenAI into decisioning systems or customer-facing products.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Ability to lead senior data scientists while remaining hands-on.
• Comfortable working with product managers, engineers, and business stakeholders.

What You We Are Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field including Econometrics,Acturial Science.Maths/Statistics, Computer Science etc,
• 10 years' experience in a senior data scientist position
• Modelling experience including knowledge of Cloud and GenAI
• Strong Analytics experience in the bank sector is an advantage

What’s In It For You

• Pay for performance culture (Competitive and performance-linked compensation)
• Diverse workforce and inclusive culture
• Career development and growth opportunities by design
• Work with the best minds in the field
• Get opportunities to bring your whole self to the organization and perform to your best.