Senior Data Scientist

Manulife; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 129,000 - 179,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision benefits

Pension and savings plan

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

Manulife seeks a Senior Data Scientist to lead analytics, ML, and generative AI initiatives for its Canadian AI team in a hybrid Toronto-based role. You will mentor junior scientists, champion Responsible AI, and partner with product, engineering, and governance teams to deliver high-impact AI-enabled solutions.

You will define analytical strategies, evaluate AI outputs, and translate insights into actionable business recommendations, shaping strategic priorities across the organization.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree or equivalent experience in a quantitative field.
• Minimum 5 years in data science, analytics, ML, or AI solution development.
• Proficient in Python or R; strong SQL preferred.
• Deep knowledge of modeling, experimentation, and analytical storytelling.
• Experience leading complex data science initiatives from discovery to implementation.
• Familiarity with generative AI, LLMs, embeddings, and RAG concepts.
• Ability to communicate complex concepts to senior audiences and influence decisions.
• Experience mentoring data scientists and promoting best practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead analytics, ML, and generative AI initiatives from framing to implementation.
• Define approaches, evaluation methods, and success metrics for AI use cases.
• Guide experiments with AI assistants, copilots, and agentic workflows.
• Apply advanced modeling and experimentation to solve business problems.
• Translate findings into actionable recommendations for stakeholders.
• Develop business cases with benefits, risks and context.
• Understand supported business areas and value chains.
• Ensure governance and model risk through documentation.
• Mentor juniors and share technical expertise across the team.
• Share reusable approaches for experimentation and model validation.
• Build internal network across partners and disciplines.

Skills

Leadership

Mentorship

Communication

Statistical modeling

Experimentation

AI evaluation

Influencing stakeholders

Responsible AI

Education

Advanced degree in Statistics/Math/CS/Engineering/Data Science/AI

Tools

Azure

Databricks

Git

MLflow

Model monitoring

Job description

As a Senior Data Scientist supporting our Canadian AI team, you will play a key leadership role in developing analytics, machine learning, generative AI, and emerging agentic AI solutions that generate business insights, improve decision-making, and advance strategic priorities across the organization. You will lead and deliver complex data science initiatives, guide experimentation with new AI capabilities, and transform large, diverse datasets into actionable recommendations and scalable AI-enabled opportunities.

Beyond technical expertise, you’ll mentor junior data scientists, champion best practices in Responsible AI and AI evaluation, and collaborate with business, product, engineering, and platform partners to drive meaningful business outcomes.

Position Responsibilities

• Lead complex analytics, machine learning, and generative AI initiatives from problem framing through implementation.
• Define analytical approaches, model strategies, evaluation methods, and success measures for high-impact AI use cases.
• Guide experimentation with AI assistants, copilots, RAG solutions, and agentic workflows in partnership with Agentic Engineers and technology teams.
• Apply advanced statistical modeling, machine learning, experimentation, and AI evaluation techniques to solve business problems.
• Translate complex analytical findings and AI outputs into clear, implementable recommendations for business stakeholders and leaders.
• Prepare business cases for assigned initiatives, including expected benefits, adoption considerations, risks, and lessons learned from related business contexts.
• Develop an intimate understanding of supported business areas, including value chains, customer journeys, operating context, and company culture.
• Anticipate and proactively address peer review, governance, and model risk management considerations through clear documentation and defensible analytical choices.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior data scientists, facilitate best-practice exchange, and share technical expertise across the team.
• Contribute reusable approaches for experimentation, model validation, and AI solution assessment within assigned initiatives and the broader data science practice.
• Build a strong internal network across business, data science, engineering, platform, and governance partners, and share lessons learned to advance practice maturity.

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or related field; or Bachelor’s degree with equivalent technical experience.
• Minimum of 5 years of applicable experience in data science, advanced analytics, machine learning, or AI solution development.
• Advanced programming capability in Python, R, or similar analytical programming languages; strong SQL experience preferred.
• Advanced understanding of programming, statistics, machine learning, exploratory data analysis, data visualization, model production, insight generation, and data wrangling.
• Deep knowledge of statistical modeling, machine learning algorithms, experimental design, model evaluation, and analytical storytelling.
• Experience leading complex data science initiatives from discovery through implementation.
• Working knowledge of generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, embeddings, RAG, AI evaluation, or agentic AI concepts.
• Ability to influence stakeholders, develop business cases, and communicate complex technical concepts to senior audiences.
• Experience mentoring data scientists and promoting technical best practices.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Azure, Databricks, Git, MLflow, model monitoring, or cloud-based AI/ML development environments.
• Familiarity with LLMOps, MLOps, model governance, Responsible AI, privacy, security, and model risk management.
• Experience with vector databases, semantic search, embeddings, RAG pipelines, or knowledge retrieval architectures.
• Exposure to LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar agentic AI frameworks.
• Experience supporting AI product development, experimentation portfolios, proof-of-concepts, MVPs, or scaled enterprise deployments.
• Experience in financial services, insurance, or another regulated environment.

When You Join Our Team

• We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want.
• We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.
• As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

About Manulife And John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with application laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact [e-mail].

Referenced Salary Location

Toronto, Ontario

Working Arrangement

Hybrid

Salary range is expected to be between

$129,400.00 CAD - $179,400.00 CAD

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact [e-mail] for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact [e-mail] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.