Principal Data Scientist

CommBank; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) is seeking a Principal Data Scientist in the Financial Crime AI Team, COO, to lead hands-on technical work across GenAI and agentic AI initiatives that deter financial crime and deliver high-impact AI solutions.

You will collaborate with engineers and other data scientists in cross-functional squads, drive MLOps, build scalable models, and mentor teams while advancing responsible AI practices within Australia’s fintech landscape.

Qualifications

• Lead GenAI and agentic system design across Fin Crime domains.
• Prototype, design, deploy, monitor ML models for detection and investigation.
• Identify AI opportunities across Fin Crime for future focus.

Responsibilities

• Prototype, design, deploy and monitor GenAI/agentic solutions.
• Develop machine learning models for NLP, clustering and classification.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to drive AI adoption and outcomes.
• Drive reusable technical outcomes across the group.

Skills

GenAI

Agentic AI

ML models

Data science

Cloud & CI/CD

Spark

Python

R

TensorFlow

PyTorch

SQL

Docker

AWS/Azure

LangChain

GitHub

Tools

Spark

Python

R

TensorFlow

PyTorch

SQL

Docker

GitHub

AWS

Azure

Job description

Business & Team:Financial Crime AI Team, COO

See yourself in our team:

At the heart of the Chief Operations Office, we’re driving CBA’s ambition to detect, deter and ultimately eliminate financial crime through the power of transformative AI solutions.

As a Principal Data Scientist in Financial Crime domain, you’ll be a hands-on technical leader working in cross-functional squads with engineers and other experts to design and deliver innovative, responsible and high impact AI solutions. You’ll stay at the forefront of emerging technologies, fostering a culture of curiosity, inclusion, and continuous learning in the team, and translating complex ideas into high-impact outcomes for our customers and colleagues. You’ll contribute strongly to guide the team ontechnicallydemanding problems across Fin Crime domainas AI continues to evolve.

If you’re passionate about shaping the future of AI while helping others thrive, we’d love you to lead with us.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead GenAI and Agentic system design and development:Prototype, design, develop, deploy and design monitoring for innovative GenAI and Agenticsolutions that transform the prevention, detection and investigation of Financial Crime in the bank while setting technical direction and best practices across the domain.
• Develop and implement Machine Learning Models:Prototype, design, build, deploy and monitor a variety of machine learning models
• Expand Data/AI Science Usage: IdentifypotentialAI opportunities across Fin Crime for future focus
• Drive Continuous Improvement and Business Outcomes:Work closely with financial crime stakeholders to understand risk and operational pain points, driving adoption of AI and GenAI to enhance detection, improve investigative outcomes, and shape the future operating model

We’re interested in hearing from people with the following skills.

Technical Leadership and Coordination:

• Ability to coordinate effectively across the Fin Crime and COO Data Science community to unify efforts and drive collaborative outcomes.
• Demonstrated capability in driving outcomes that are reusable and can be leveraged across the group.
• Intellectual curiosity and ability and willingness to learn, experiment and lead new to the world concepts

Technical Skills and Tools:

• Generative AI:Experience designing and deploying various aspects of Generative AI, including prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), guardrail design, orchestration design, skills, evals frameworks, and tools such as LangChain and LangGraph.
• Machine Learning: Expertise in the design and construction of machine learning models, including natural language processing, unsupervised clustering and classification algorithms including feature engineering, model selection, hyperparameter tuning, model evaluation, and deployment of models into production environments.
• Cutting-Edge AI: Workon projects leveraging traditional AI, Generative AI, and agentic AI to pave the path for how banking and broader industry functions in the future.
• Version Control and CI/CD:Experience with version control and CI/CD pipelines such as GitHub.
• Tooling: Hands-on experience with data science tools such as Spark, Python, R, TensorFlow, PyTorch, and SQL.
• Data Engineering:Knowledge of ETL processes and data pipeline construction, ensuring efficient data flow and integration.
• Deployment: Familiar with Docker for containerization and deployment of applications.
• Cloud Architecture:Grounded understanding in AWS or Azure Cloud architecture and integration, demonstrating experience in deploying and managing cloud-based solutions.

Working with us:

Our people bring their diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives to build a respectful, inclusive, and flexible workplace with an ultimate flexibility to work from any of our engineering hubs within Australia. One where we’re driven by our values, and supported to share ideas, initiatives, and energy. One where making a positive impact for customers, communities and each other is part of our every day.

If you're already part of the Commonwealth Bank Group (including Bankwest, x15ventures), you'll need to apply through Sidekick to submit a valid application. We’re keen to support you with the next step in your career.

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