Principal Data Scientist - Gaming AI & Impact

GamblingCareers.com; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Aristocrat is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to lead end‑to‑end data science initiatives, delivering ML and reinforcement learning solutions to enhance player engagement and monetization. You will guide modeling frameworks, ensure robust evaluation, and collaborate with game teams to define success metrics and actionable recommendations.

You will set engineering standards for model development, drive experiments, work with Data Eng, MLOps, and Game Tech, and mentor data scientists to raise

Qualifications

• PhD or MSc in a quantitative field or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of professional data science experience with at least 3 end-to-end data/ML products.
• Experience with clustering, predictive modeling, reinforcement learning and Bayesian statistics.
• Hands-on software engineering, MLOps, and deploying ML models at scale.
• Proficiency in SQL, Python and familiarity with big data or cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead high‑impact data science initiatives end‑to‑end, including problem framing, methodology selection, experiment development, implementation partnership, and impact measurement.
• Build and deliver machine learning and reinforcement learning solutions to improve player engagement, retention, monetization, and operational outcomes.
• Lead the modeling framework for complex systems, guaranteeing comprehensive evaluation and monitoring of causal inference, uplift modeling, sequential decisioning, bandits/reinforcement learning, and forecasting.
• Partner with game teams to define success metrics, guardrails, and decision frameworks, translating analytical results into actionable product and operational actions.
• Define and uphold engineering standards and guidelines for model development, including validation, uncertainty, reproducibility, and bias/quality checks.
• Drive scalable experimentation with A/B and Multi‑armed bandit testing frameworks, power analysis, variance reduction, and online‑offline alignment.
• Work together with Data Engineering, MLOps, and Game Tech teams to guarantee dependable data foundations, feature accessibility, and model deployment pathways.
• Build internal data products to improve the speed and quality of decision‑making, such as AB‑test calculators, decision tools, and automated insights.
• Provide technical leadership through building and code reviews, mentoring, and coaching, improving the standard of data science craft across the organization.
• Serve as a reliable collaborator throughout the organization, promoting data‑informed decision‑making and enabling business units to embrace data products.
• Translate complex analytical insights into actionable recommendations, presenting them to senior leadership to inform critical business decisions and encourage collaborators.

Skills

Clustering

Predictive modeling

Reinforcement learning

Bayesian statistics

Software engineering

MLOps

Python

SQL

Education

PhD or MSc in Data Science or related field

Tools

Kafka

Spark

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS/Azure)

Job description

Aristocrat is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to lead end‑to‑end data science initiatives, delivering ML and reinforcement learning solutions to enhance player engagement and monetization. You will guide modeling frameworks, ensure robust evaluation, and collaborate with game teams to define success metrics and actionable recommendations.

You will set engineering standards for model development, drive experiments, work with Data Eng, MLOps, and Game Tech, and mentor data scientists to raise