Lead Data Scientist

Lendable Ltd; London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading fintech company in London is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to enhance credit risk models using machine learning. The ideal candidate will have experience in financial services and a passion for algorithm development. This role allows for significant ownership and impact within the team, focusing on innovative practices while working with advanced technologies. This position offers a hybrid work model with competitive compensation, including equity.

Benefits

Best-in-class compensation

Private health insurance

Hybrid work model

Qualifications

• Proven background in credit, lending, or financial services.
• Experience with machine learning and data analysis.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team.

Responsibilities

• Build and deploy models for credit risk.
• Stay updated with advancements in machine learning.
• Mentor other data scientists and promote best practices.

Skills

Knowledge of machine learning techniques

Ability to communicate complex topics

Proficiency with creating ML models in Python

Interest in financial services

Experience mentoring others

Tools

MLFlow

Job description

About Lendable

Lendable is on a mission to make consumer finance amazing: faster, cheaper, and friendlier. We're building one of the world\'s leading fintech companies and are off to a strong start:

• One of the UK\'s newest unicorns with a team of just over 600 people
• Among the fastest-growing tech companies in the UK
• Profitable since 2017
• Backed by top investors including Balderton Capital and Goldman Sachs
• Loved by customers with the best reviews in the market (4.9 across 10,000s of reviews on Trustpilot)

So far, we\'ve rebuilt the Big Three consumer finance products from scratch: loans, credit cards and car finance. We get money into our customers\' hands in minutes instead of days.

We\'re growing fast, and there\'s a lot more to do: we\'re going after the two biggest Western markets (UK and US) where trillions worth of financial products are held by big banks with dated systems and painful processes.

Join us if you want to

1. Take ownership across a broad remit. You are trusted to make decisions that drive a material impact on the direction and success of Lendable from day 1
2. Work in small teams of exceptional people, who are relentlessly resourceful to solve problems and find smarter solutions than the status quo
3. Build the best technology in-house, using new data sources, machine learning and AI to make machines do the heavy lifting

About the role

We are excited to be hiring a new Lead Data Scientist for our team! Ideally, this role will suit someone with a proven background in building models in credit, lending, or other areas of financial services. Lendable is the market leader in real rate risk-based pricing, offering consumers transparency and product assurance at the point of application. Data Science sits at the heart of this USP, developing the credit risk models to underwrite loan and credit card products.

You will experiment with the latest machine learning techniques combined with a rich data repository to build and deploy best-in-market risk models.

This role will primarily focus on our UK Cards business, but through team collaboration, you will be exposed to all areas of Lendable. Our team keeps up with the latest advancements in the industry through regular journal clubs.

Our team\'s objectives

• The data science team develops proprietary machine learning models combining state-of-the-art techniques with a variety of data sources that inform scorecard development and risk management, optimise marketing and pricing, and improve operations efficiency.
• Research new data sources and unstructured data representation.
• Data scientists work across the business in a multidisciplinary capacity to identify issues, translate business problems into data questions, analyse and propose solutions.
• Deliver data services to a wide variety of stakeholders by engineering CLI programs / APIs.
• Design, implement, manage and evaluate experiments of products and services leading to constant innovation and improvement.

How you\'ll impact those objectives

• Use your expertise to build and deploy models that contribute to the success of the business
• Stay up to date with the latest advancements in machine learning and proactively propose new approaches and projects that drive innovation.
• Learn the domain of products that Lendable serves, understanding the data that informs strategy and risk modelling.
• Extract, parse, clean and transform data for use in machine learning.
• Clearly communicate results to stakeholders through verbal and written communication.
• Mentor other data scientists and promote best practices throughout the team and business

Key Skills

• Knowledge of machine learning techniques and their respective pros and cons.
• Ability to communicate complex topics clearly and concisely
• Proficiency with creating ML models in Python with experiment tracking tools, such as MLFlow.
• Curiosity, creativity, resourcefulness and a collaborative spirit
• Interest in problems related to the financial services domain - a knowledge of Credit Cards is advantageous
• Confident communicator and contributes effectively within a team environment
• Experience mentoring or leading others
• Self-driven and willing to lead on projects / new initiatives

The interview process

We\'re not corporate, so we try our best to get things moving as quickly as possible. For this role, we\'d expect:

• A quick phone call with the talent team
• Take home task
• Task debrief
• Case study interview
• Meet the leadership team

Life at Lendable

• The opportunity to scale up one of the world\'s most successful fintech companies.
• Best-in-class compensation, including equity.
• You can work from home every Monday and Friday if you wish - on the other days, those based in the UK come together IRL at our Shoreditch office in London to be together, build and exchange ideas.
• Enjoy a fully stocked kitchen with everything you need to whip up breakfast, lunch, snacks, and drinks in the office every Tuesday-Thursday.
• We care for our Lendies\' well-being both physically and mentally, so we offer coverage when it comes to private health insurance
• We\'re an equal-opportunity employer and are looking to make Lendable the most inclusive and open workspace in London

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