Data Scientist

Tails; London Borough of Richmond upon Thames; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Healthcare through AXA

9 day fortnight

25 days annual leave

8 remote working days

Job summary

Tails is seeking a Data Scientist in London to own predictive modelling and ML work aimed at improving customer lifetime value and sustainable growth.

You will build models to understand which customers stay, spend, and engage, and translate insights into acquisition, retention, and experience improvements. Collaborate with Marketing, CRM, Product, Finance, Engineering and Data teams.

The role emphasizes turning data science into practical business decisions and impact.

Qualifications

• 2-4+ years in a data science role, with a proven track record of deploying statistical and machine learning models on complex, messy, real-world data
• Experience building customer lifetime value, survival, propensity or churn models, ideally for a subscription business and used to drive CRM or marketing activity
• Strong experimental design and causal inference: A/B tests, holdouts and control groups, uplift measurement and incrementality
• Experience feeding model outputs into paid media, such as value-based bidding, offline or server-side conversion events, or predicted-value audiences on Meta or Google
• Experience with marketing mix modelling or attribution
• A bachelor's or master's degree in a STEM related field
• Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL with extensive experience working with core data science libraries (e.g. pandas/polars, scikit-learn)
• Familiar with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS) and orchestration tools (e.g. Airflow, Dagster) in relation to operationalising data science products
• Experience leveraging Snowflake ML and robust data pipelines to deliver scalable, production-ready data science solutions
• A decision-first mindset: you start from the business decision and its owner, and you're comfortable recommending to stop when a test doesn't deliver
• Highly Desirable: Subscriptions or D2C business experience

Responsibilities

• Own lifetime value, predicted lifetime value and acquisition signals and define CAC and payback with Finance and Analytics
• Predict each new customer's lifetime value after sign-up using acquisition source, behaviour and plan data
• Send predictions to acquisition partners and ensure events are complete, timely and matched to customers
• Compare channels by the value their customers create, not just cost per sign-up
• Help build marketing mix modelling as the value work matures
• Find why trial customers do not become paying customers and test changes to improve conversion
• Decide which new customers need extra support and actions likely to work
• Run controlled tests with CRM and Customer Experience & Retention to measure impact
• Set minimum test and holdout standards for the work
• Deploy models to production with data engineering support and monitor health and retraining

Skills

Python

SQL

Experiment design

Communication

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in STEM

Tools

AWS

Airflow

Dagster

Snowflake ML

Job description

Who are we?

Hi, we’re Tails.com – we turn good days into great years for dogs and their humans.

We're working towards longer lives for millions of healthy, happy dogs by providing tailored nutrition that adapts to each dog’s unique needs. It all starts with a few simple questions about their age, breed, zoomie level and tastebuds. From there, owners can create a personalised meal plan that's delivered to their door every month. No guesswork, no overwhelm. Just exactly the right care for every dog, every day. It's pretty clever stuff.

As a certified B Corp, being a responsible business is built into how we work – upholding high social and environmental standards to create better walkies for generations to come.

Now, we’re cooking up big plans. Having created an entirely new category in dog food, we have the backing of Purina – one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards these same goals (and a bunch of very smart office dogs, all working on their own thing).

Job Title

Data Scientist

Reporting of the role

Reports to: Senior Analytics Manager

Overview of the job

The Data Scientist will own Tails.com's predictive modelling and machine learning work, with a primary focus on improving customer lifetime value (LTV) and driving more sustainable, profitable growth.

They will build and develop models that help the business better understand which customers are likely to stay, spend and engage long-term, using these insights to improve acquisition strategies, customer retention and the overall customer experience.

The role will work closely with Performance Marketing, CRM, Customer Experience & Retention, Product, Finance, Engineering and Data teams, taking ownership of projects from identifying opportunities and building models through to testing, implementation and measuring commercial impact.

The focus isn't simply on building models, but on turning data science into practical business decisions that improve how Tails.com acquires and retains customers.

3 best things about the job

1. Ownership & influence: Own the predictive modelling and machine learning agenda, with the opportunity to shape the wider data science roadmap and influence business strategy.

2. Commercial impact: Work on high-impact projects around customer lifetime value, acquisition and retention, with a direct link between your work and business growth.

3. Cross-functional exposure: Partner with teams across Marketing, Product, Finance, Customer Experience and Technology, seeing your work implemented across the business.

Measures of success – In the first few months, you would have:

• Built strong relationships with key stakeholders across Performance Marketing, CRM, Product, Finance, Customer Experience and Technology.

• Developed a strong understanding of Tails.com's customer lifecycle, existing data infrastructure, models and commercial priorities.

• Taken ownership of the customer lifetime value modelling roadmap, identifying opportunities to improve existing predictions.

• Started developing and implementing predictive models to help improve customer acquisition, trial conversion and retention.

• Identified opportunities to embed data-driven insights into CRM and paid media activity, with clear testing plans to measure commercial impact.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Lifetime value, predicted lifetime value and acquisition signals

• Own our lifetime value model, building on the models and definitions we already have rather than starting again, and agree one definition of lifetime value, CAC and payback with Finance and Analytics

• Predict each new customer's lifetime value as early as possible after sign-up, from acquisition source, behaviour, dog and plan data and early engagement

• Send that prediction to our acquisition partners (such as Meta and Google) so they optimise towards customers likely to stay rather than cheap sign-ups, and check with Marketing and Engineering that the events we send are complete, timely and matched to the right customers

• Compare channels by the value their customers go on to create, not only cost per sign-up

• As the value work maturing, help build marketing mix modelling that shows how spend across channels drives valuable customers, building on the measurement we already have

Conversion and early-life retention

• Find where and why trial customers do not become paying customers, and test the changes that improve trial-to-paid conversion without relying solely on discounts

• Decide which new customers need extra support in their first months, what kind, and while there is still time to change the outcome, matching risk and value to the actions most likely to work

• Run controlled tests with CRM and Customer Experience & Retention that measure the extra conversion, retention and retained value they create

Experiment standards

• Set the minimum test and holdout standards for this work, so every result can show what it caused

Production and monitoring

• Deploy models to production with help from our data engineering team, and monitor their health, drift and retraining so problems are caught and fixed quickly

What you will need:

• 2-4+ years in a data science role, with a proven track record of deploying statistical and machine learning models on complex, messy, real-world data, and showing the business impact they had

• Experience building customer lifetime value, survival, propensity or churn models, ideally for a subscription business and used to drive CRM or marketing activity

• Strong experimental design and causal inference: A/B tests, holdouts and control groups, uplift measurement and incrementality

• Experience feeding model outputs into paid media, such as value-based bidding, offline or server-side conversion events, or predicted-value audiences on Meta or Google

• Experience with marketing mix modelling or attribution

• A bachelor's or master's degree in a STEM related field

• Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL with extensive experience working with core data science libraries (e.g. pandas/polars, scikit-learn)

• Familiar with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS) and orchestration tools (e.g. Airflow, Dagster) in relation to operationalising data science products

• Experience leveraging Snowflake ML and robust data pipelines to deliver scalable, production-ready data science solutions

• A decision-first mindset: you start from the business decision and its owner, and you're comfortable recommending to stop when a test doesn't deliver

• Highly Desirable: Subscriptions or D2C business experience

A few of our core benefits:

• Private Healthcare through AXA

• A 9 day fortnight - our office is closed every other Friday!

• 25 days of Annual Leave and 8 additional remote working days

For more information on our benefits, perks and what makes us unique, please visit our website here

Here’s a taster of how our recruitment process works:

1. Once you have applied your CV will be reviewed by the Talent Acquisition Team.

2. If selected, you will then have a call with the TA Team who will tell you more about us and the role, as well as learning more about your skills and experience.

3. Should you be successful, the next stage will be a video call with the hiring manager.

4. If successful, you will be invited to present a task back to a panel of interviewers.

5. The final stage is a more informal conversation with some of your peers.

Our Commitment

We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under-represented at Tails.com.

During your interview process you’ll meet some of our team with varying levels of responsibility and experience. We want to give every candidate a fair interview process and if you need any reasonable adjustments made, please let us know.