Lead Data Scientist — AML Automation & AI Risk

Remote Worker LTD.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options in a profitable company

Hybrid working model

Annual personal development budget

Visa and relocation support

Job summary

Wise, a global fintech in London, is seeking a Lead Data Scientist (IC3) for AML Handling & Prevent. You will drive technical strategy, architect AI systems, and lead end-to-end automation to reduce financial crime risk while enabling scale across the operations team.

You’ll build EDD LLMs, evaluation pipelines, and production Python services, mentor other data scientists, and shape governance in a fast-growing environment.

Qualifications

• Experience implementing, training, testing and evaluating performance of Machine Learning systems.
• Strong Python knowledge. A big plus for proven familiarity and experience with OOP principles.
• Knowledge and experience developing and evaluating GenAI / LLM solutions, including automated eval harnesses and prompt engineering.
• Experience with statistical analysis, experiment design, and failure mode analysis in LLM systems.
• A strong product mindset with the ability to work independently in a cross-functional and cross-team environment.
• Good communication skills and ability to get the point across to non-technical individuals and SMEs.
• Strong problem solving skills with the ability to help refine problem statements and figure out how to solve them.

Responsibilities

• End-to-End Automation & EDD LLMs: Lead the development and deployment of AI models designed to augment operational workflows, specifically automating case summaries, red flag generation, risk classifications, and document requests.
• Evaluation Framework & Labeling Taxonomy: Establish labeling taxonomies and guidelines with EDD SMEs, construct evaluation datasets, and implement automated eval harnesses to measure accuracy, precision, recall, and failure modes.
• Prompt Optimization & Experimentation: Audit existing prompts and run structured experiments to reduce hallucinations, formatting errors, and prompt drift.
• Shadow Testing & Monitoring: Design shadow mode deployments and parallel execution testing to safely evaluate prompts at scale, with post-deployment monitoring.
• Full-Stack Deployment: Take ownership of production pipeline by writing and deploying production-ready Python services.
• Human-in-the-Loop Architecture: Design systems where AI provides recommendations but humans retain final decision authority.
• Strategic Demand Deflection: Analyze upstream data to deflect financial crime attempts before reaching operations.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Set technical direction, mentor staff, and guide AI governance standards.

Skills

Python

Machine Learning

Leadership

Product mindset

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

LangGraph

Java

Job description

Wise, a global fintech in London, is seeking a Lead Data Scientist (IC3) for AML Handling & Prevent. You will drive technical strategy, architect AI systems, and lead end-to-end automation to reduce financial crime risk while enabling scale across the operations team.

You’ll build EDD LLMs, evaluation pipelines, and production Python services, mentor other data scientists, and shape governance in a fast-growing environment.