Lead Applied AI Data Scientist

Friend MTS; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave 25 days

Enhanced Pension

Life Assurance

BUPA

Employee Assistance

Parental leave

Learning & development

Flexible Benefits

Full tech setup

Weekly breakfasts

Mentorship opportunities

Career progression

Job summary

Friend MTS is seeking a Lead Applied AI Data Scientist to drive production AI solutions and provide technical leadership. You will work directly with customers to understand complex challenges and mentor other data scientists, shaping the technical direction of our AI initiatives.

The role focuses on building scalable AI systems, collaborating with product and engineering teams, and evaluating new AI technologies to advance our offerings for broadcasters, sports organizations and streaming

Qualifications

• Experience in building production AI systems and leading technical initiatives.
• Mentor applied AI data scientists and collaborate with engineering and product teams.
• Directly work with customers to understand complex operational challenges.

Responsibilities

• Design and build production AI systems.
• Lead complex technical initiatives.
• Mentor Applied AI Data Scientists.
• Work directly with customers.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies.
• Help define technical standards and best practices.
• Influence the future direction of AI within Friend MTS.

Skills

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Customer engagement

Problem solving

Tools

Python

SQL

AWS

PyTorch

Scikit-learn

XGBoost

Docker

Kubernetes

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

LLMs

AI Agents

Job description

Location: Manchester or London (Hybrid)

Help shape the future of AI-powered cyber intelligence. We're building the next generation of AI-powered cyber intelligence. That means moving beyond dashboards and reports towards intelligent systems that understand behaviour, automate investigations and help our customers stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated piracy networks. We're looking for someone to help lead that journey.

The opportunity

As Lead Applied AI Data Scientist, you'll combine hands-on AI development with technical leadership. You'll work directly with customers to understand complex operational challenges before turning those ideas into production AI solutions. You'll mentor other data scientists, influence our technical direction and help shape the future of AI across Friend MTS. This is not a management role. It's a technical leadership role.

What you'll build

• Detect organised piracy at global scale
• Understand behavioural patterns across complex datasets
• Automate investigations using AI agents and LLMs
• Identify relationships hidden within billions of events
• Support analysts with AI-assisted decision making
• Create products used by broadcasters, sports organisations and streaming platforms worldwide

What you'll do

Every week is different. Some weeks you'll spend most of your time writing Python. Other weeks you'll be working with customers to understand problems that have never been solved before.

• Design and build production AI systems
• Lead complex technical initiatives
• Mentor Applied AI Data Scientists
• Work directly with customers
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies
• Help define technical standards and best practices
• Influence the future direction of AI within Friend MTS

What we're looking for

We're not looking for someone who's simply used every AI framework. We're looking for technical leadership. Someone who enjoys solving difficult problems, helping others succeed and turning ambitious ideas into working software.

Experience with any of the following would be an advantage:

• LLMs
• AI Agents
• Graph analytics
• Behavioural modelling
• Cyber security
• Network intelligence
• PyTorch
• XGBoost

Our technology

• Python
• SQL
• AWS
• PyTorch
• Scikit-learn
• XGBoost
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• Claude Code
• GitHub Copilot
• LLMs
• AI Agents

Why Friend MTS?

AI is becoming one of the core capabilities of Friend MTS. This is an opportunity to help build that capability from the ground up. You'll work on challenging technical problems, influence the direction of our products and help define how AI is applied across the business. Your work will directly impact products used by many of the world's leading broadcasters, sports organisations and streaming platforms. If you want to build practical AI that solves real-world problems - and help shape the future of an ambitious engineering organisation, we'd love to hear from you.

What We Offer

• 25 days of annual leave (Incl. Bank Holidays) + 1 day off for your birthday
• Enhanced Pension - 5% employee and 5% employer contribution
• Life Assurance - on the successful completion of your probation (4x your salary)
• BUPA (on the successfulcompletion of your probation)
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Leave (after a qualifying period)
• Various Learning and Development Platforms
• A flexible Benefits and Wellbeing Platform
• Full tech set up to ensure you have what you need to be successful in your role
• Weekly breakfasts in the office
• Mentorship: Direct access to senior data scientists and engineers in a supportive, high-growth environment.
• Impact: The chance to work on technology that protects some of the most valuable media rights in the world.
• Growth: A clear career progression path within a private-equity-backed, global tech company.

Here at Friend MTS, we are dedicated to nurturing and expanding a culture of belonging where everyone feels seen, heard, valued for who they are. By embracing the diversity of our people (and future people!) we achieve our best work, together. We ensure that at all stages of our hiring process, your education level, neurodivergence, background, race, religion, colour, sex, age, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability will not influence your chances for selection.

If you are interested in applying for a role at Friend MTS and need special assistance, please make us aware and we will support you in accommodating this.