Junior Applied Scientist (all genders)

Zalando Payments GmbH; Berlin; On-site; EUR 55,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

27 days holiday

40% off fashion

Family support

Company pension

Employee shares

Wellbeing options

Training platform

Volunteering days

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Zalando Payments GmbH, based in Berlin, seeks a Junior Applied Scientist to help develop risk and embeddings models. You will participate in the full ML lifecycle—from data exploration to model deployment and monitoring—balancing fraud prevention with user experience and production readiness.

You'll work in Risk Management, collaborating across operations and tooling teams to translate research into real-time improvements that reduce losses while keeping customers satisfied.

Qualifications

• Strong research background in ML, with interest in fraud/credit risk.
• Interest in productionizing models and deploying to real-time systems.
• Motivation to work with diverse data types (networks, NLP, customer history).

Responsibilities

• Balance blocking bad customers with preserving good user experience.
• Work with diverse datasets including networks, NLP, and customer history.
• Drive innovation by researching and developing transformer-based models.
• Collaborate with operations and internal tool teams to drive business impact.

Skills

Customer-centric approach

Researching ML methods

Production mindset

Cross-functional collaboration

Data storytelling

Tools

Transformer technology

Job description

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

Zalando Payments is looking for a Junior Applied Scientist to help us further develop our risk models, and their underlying embeddings models. In this role, you will participate in the full ML lifecycle: data deep dives to gain insight and ask better questions about experimentation, model creation and training, deployment, and monitoring. While there is a strong research component required in this role, we are searching for someone with a production mindset. We need someone who thinks through how to put new findings into our real-time systems. Most importantly, we are looking for someone who really loves data, as fraud and insolvency patterns are diverse and constantly shifting, we need someone who seeks to understand and utilize those patterns for good. This position is located in the Risk Management department which is responsible for managing credit and fraud risk for Zalando's payments.

WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

• Opportunity to work in an interesting ML space, balancing the importance of blocking bad customers without hindering the experience for the good ones
• Diverse and interesting data sets (networks, natural language, customer history)
• Drive innovation and improve models through research, design and development of new transformer technology to create measurable business impact
• Make a substantial financial impact on Zalando's business
• Engage with the wider applied science community at Zalando

WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF

• You consistently demonstrate a customer centric approach and start to flag continuous improvements initiatives within your area
• You enjoy researching new ML methods that could improve model performance
• You are interested in collaborating with different functional areas (operations, internal tool developers) to drive business outcomes
• You think finding the "why" in datasets is the most interesting part of your job
• You think about how to tackle experiments but also how to put those findings into production and generate value

OUR OFFER

Zalando provides a range of benefits, here's an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.

• 27 days of holiday a year to start for full-time employees (+1 day for every calendar year up to 30 days)
• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners
• Family support, including counselling and dedicated services for parents and carers
• Company pension scheme
• Employee shares programme
• Health and wellbeing options, including Wellhub Mental health support and coaching
• Development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review
• 2 paid volunteering days a year
• Relocation assistance (subject to prior agreement)

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle - one that thrives on diversity and is truly inclusive by design.

We believe that diverse teams fuel innovation and creativity, and we actively seek out talent from all backgrounds.

We actively seek to reduce bias in our hiring and employment processes, focusing on your qualifications, skills, and contributions.

To support this, we kindly ask that you refrain from including personal details such as your photo, age, or marital status in your CV, ensuring a fair and equitable evaluation based solely on your abilities and potential.

We are committed to providing an exceptional and accessible candidate experience for everyone.

If you require any accommodations to support you throughout the hiring process, please let us know - we are here to assist you.

Discover more about our commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion

It's the perfect time to join Zalando on our journey, from being a pioneer in the world of e-commerce, to the Starting Point for Fashion in Europe. We connect customers, brands, and partners across 25 markets. Help us drive digital and sustainable solutions for fashion, logistics, advertising and research, bringing head-to-toe fashion to 50 million active customers through a team of diverse skill-sets, cultural backgrounds, and interests. Our values do.More - our sustainability strategy Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/insidezalando