Data Scientist - Decisioning

Optima Partners; City of Edinburgh; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A forward-thinking professional services firm in Edinburgh is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to develop and implement decision-making and machine learning models in the financial services sector. The role combines technical expertise with stakeholder engagement to deliver impactful analytical solutions. Candidates should possess strong skills in predictive modeling and data analysis, preferably within regulated environments. A minimum 2:1 degree in a STEM subject is required.

Qualifications

• Experience developing and deploying predictive models and decisioning logic.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Comfortable working independently or as part of a team.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy predictive models for financial services clients.
• Engage stakeholders to understand business requirements.
• Communicate technical output transparently to non-technical audiences.

Skills

Predictive modeling

Data analysis

Stakeholder engagement

Technical problem-solving

Communication

Machine learning

Education

Minimum 2:1 degree in a STEM subject

MSc or other postgraduate qualification

Tools

Python

SQL

Job description

The Role

Optima Partners is a forward-thinking professional services firm on an exciting growth trajectory. As we expand from 50 to 200 employees over the next two to three years, we are strengthening our team and are now looking for Senior Data Scientist with a focus on decisioning. In this role, you will combine strong technical expertise with a consultative approach to deliver high-impact analytical solutions predominantly in the financial services sector. You will develop and implement decisioning and machine learning models, with a particular focus on customer marketing decisioning. You will support the development of decisioning frameworks that drive tailored customer interactions across acquisition, retention, cross-sell and customer experience strategies. This involves:

• Designing and implementing predictive models to power next-best-action and next-best-offer logic.
• Designing and implementing simulation and optimisation models to help clients achieve the best mix of customer outcomes within their operational constraints.
• Working within regulated environments to ensure fairness, transparency, and explainability of model-driven decisions.
• Incorporating customer eligibility, consent, and vulnerability indicators into decision logic.
• Collaborating with business and compliance stakeholders to align decisioning models with regulatory requirements such as Consumer Duty and GDPR.
• Monitoring and refining models based on performance outcomes, with a focus on ethical AI principles and customer impact.
  
  

This role blends technical problem-solving, stakeholder engagement, and regulatory awareness to help clients create customer-centric, responsible, and effective marketing strategies.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy predictive models and associated decisioning logic that create tangible value for financial services clients.
• Design, build, and deploy optimisation models to inform optimal intervention strategies at a customer level; Building simulation tools to evaluate the impact at overall portfolio level.
• Engage stakeholders to understand business requirements and translate them into robust analytical approaches.
• Communicate technical output in a way that is transparent, actionable, and compelling to a non-technical audience.
• Apply a consulting mindset to problem-solving, proactively identifying opportunities to add value through analytics.
• Contribute to the advancement of Optima’s data science practice through collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.
  
  

Experience & Skills

Experience:

• Essential: Experience developing and deploying predictive models and decisioning logic that uses models and business rules (e.g. credit risk, customer marketing, lifecycle strategies) in the financial services sector.
• Exposure and experience in an enterprise-level decisioning platform, such as Pega.
• Demonstrated ability to work with and advise senior stakeholders across business and technical teams.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the confidence to operate in a consulting environment and influence business decisions.
• Comfortable working independently or as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Curious, commercially aware, and practical in applying data science to real-world challenges.
• Willing to continually learn and explore new techniques and technologies.
  
  

Skills:

• Minimum 2:1 degree in a STEM subject; MSc or other postgraduate qualification in a quantitative discipline is preferred.
• Strong working knowledge of statistics, including experiment design, uncertainty quantification, and predictive modelling.
• Experience with a range of ML techniques (supervised and unsupervised).
• Strong understanding of profit and loss levers, and their interplay with customer behaviour.
• Proficient in Python (preferred) and a data manipulation language (a version of SQL preferred), ideally in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Ability to create clear, engaging presentations and technical documentation.
  
  

Our Team

As part of the One Optima team, made up of our core capabilities in data science, engineering, and consulting, you’ll sit within the Data Science team but work collaboratively across all disciplines to deliver high-impact client projects. Our approach is intentionally multi-disciplinary, combining deep technical expertise, commercial insight, and innovation to stay focused on delivering the best possible outcomes for our clients. In this role, your primary focus will be on delivering high-quality, data-driven solutions as part of project teams, contributing to all stages from discovery and design through to implementation and real-world impact. You’ll work closely with colleagues in consulting and technology to ensure data science is seamlessly integrated into wider client solutions, balancing analytical rigour with business relevance. Alongside delivery, you’ll also play a role in shaping our propositions, developing reusable methodologies, and advancing our IP to meet evolving client needs.

The Company

Optima Partners is an advanced data and business consultancy headquartered in Edinburgh, UK. We are practitioner led and partner with leading consumer brands to drive transformation and catalyse customer-centricity through our expertise in customer strategy, design innovation, and cutting-edge data science and engineering.

We help our clients get closer to their customers, to truly understand them and deliver exactly the right products, engagement, and experiences across all channels and interactions. We specialise in untapping latent value within organisations through a three-pronged approach that focuses on identifying and enhancing value for customers, within the customer base, and within the business itself. In doing so, we foster sustainable value, paving the way for consistent business growth.

We work with leading consumer brands to tackle and overcome complex business and customer problems to drive transformation and champion customer-centric agendas. We are proud to include some of the leading UK and Global brands among our current clients such as Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group, Bank of Ireland, Nationwide, Aviva, Biogen, Eon Next, OVO, Virgin Media O2, BT, HMD Global, Centrica, GSK. We are obsessive about delivering value for our clients and work in a collaborative, engaged and creative way with our colleagues and Clients. We strive to support the transition of knowledge and capability into strategic teams.

In the pharmaceutical sector, we are internationally recognised for our expertise in early-phase drug discovery, genomics, and human genetics. In late 2023, we proudly launched our new division, bioXcelerate AI, which stands at the forefront of revolutionising life sciences and healthcare research. bioXcelerate AI uses state-of-the-art data science and proprietary algorithms to accelerate the transformation of data into actionable insights, redefining industry standards.