Senior Data Scientist, Surfline Coastal Intelligence

Surfline Wavetrak; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A coastal monitoring technology company is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to develop new coastal monitoring capabilities. The successful candidate will apply advanced computer vision methods to enhance a global camera network, collaborating with data science and engineering teams. Strong expertise in Python and machine learning pipeline development is essential. This role offers the flexibility to work from anywhere in the UK, providing an extraordinary opportunity for innovation and impact in coastal management.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience working with Python in research and production environments.
• Ability to lead modeling efforts from start to finish.
• Experience in building ML pipelines with large datasets.

Responsibilities

• Prototype and validate new coastal monitoring capabilities.
• Conduct hypothesis-driven experiments including feature engineering.
• Work cross-functionally to ensure model outputs meet requirements.
• Communicate with customers to gather requirements.

Skills

Python

Machine Learning pipeline development

Hypothesis-driven experimentation

Data visualization

Job description

As a Senior Data Scientist on the Surfline Coastal Intelligence (SCI) team, you will play a central role in developing the next generation of coastal monitoring and prediction technology. Your focus will be on applying advanced computer vision (CV) methods to our global camera network and integrating these outputs with physical, hydrodynamic, and statistical modeling to deliver actionable insights for coastal managers, engineers, and public safety agencies.

You’ll contribute to our technical roadmap, own the delivery of high-value modeling and CV initiatives, and collaborate deeply with data science, engineering, and product teams. This role requires strong analytical and quantitative skills, creativity in solving open-ended problems, and the ability to build production-ready models that perform in challenging real-world environments.

Under Surfline's "Work from Anywhere" policy, this position may be performed from anywhere in the UK.

What You'll Do:

• Prototype and validate new coastal monitoring capabilities, contributing directly to SCI’s R&D roadmap in collaboration with our Data Science, Engineering, and Product teams.
• Conduct hypothesis-driven experiments, including feature engineering, model evaluation, and validation against ground-truth datasets (e.g., lidar, surveys, tide gauges, and sensor networks).
• Work cross-functionally with SCI stakeholders to ensure model outputs meet operational accuracy and delivery requirements for government and enterprise customers.
• Communicate directly with customers where necessary to gather requirements throughout the product lifecycle.

What We're Looking For:

• Extensive experience working with Python in research and production environments.
• Delivery-oriented, able to lead and execute modeling efforts from start to finish.
• Thorough understanding of the challenges of building ML pipelines with large datasets and taking them from R&D into production.