Expert Data Scientist

Ciklum India; Chennai District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Udemy access

Language courses

Company-paid certifications

Medical insurance

Job summary

Ciklum is seeking an Expert Data Scientist to join our India team on a full-time basis. The role leads evaluation-driven development across AI/ML and analytics, shaping modeling strategy and governance while mentoring junior data scientists.

You'll drive multi-project delivery in 45-day sprints, work with AWS-based platforms, and balance performance, explainability, and cost within a global portfolio. This is a senior leadership role with significant impact.

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Data Science, Statistics, CS, OR, or related field (or equivalent)
• 10+ years of experience delivering data science/ML/analytics solutions with leadership
• Proven track record selecting modeling approaches across statistical, ML, optimization, simulation, and GenAI
• Deep experience defining evaluation metrics tied to KPIs and business impact
• Extensive hands-on experience with AWS AI/ML platforms and MLOps at scale
• Experience leading agile, versioned delivery cycles across teams

Responsibilities

• Define and champion evaluation-driven development standards and metrics
• Oversee multiple concurrent workstreams in 45-day agile cycles
• Set architectural and MLOps direction for AI/ML platforms on AWS
• Own cost-management and performance-optimization for data and ML workloads
• Represent DS function in audits, regulatory reviews, and executive reporting
• Mentor Senior Data Scientists and drive adoption of best practices

Skills

Stakeholder management

Executive communication

Leadership

Agile delivery

Data science

AWS/MLOps

Education

Master's or PhD in Data Science/related field

Tools

AWS

MLOps tooling

Job description

Job Description

Ciklum is looking for an Expert Data Scientist to join our team full-time in India.

We are a custom product engineering company that supports both multinational organizations and scaling startups to solve their most complex business challenges. With a global team of over 4,000 highly skilled developers, consultants, analysts and product owners, we engineer technology that redefines industries and shapes the way people live.

About The Role

As an Expert Data Scientist, become a part of a cross-functional development team engineering experiences of tomorrow. The Expert/Principal Data Scientist is a senior technical leader responsible for setting the standard for evaluation-driven development across the organization's AI/ML and analytics portfolio. This person defines modeling strategy, evaluation frameworks, and delivery governance across multiple 45-day release cycles, and is accountable for demonstrating measurable business impact at a portfolio level while mentoring senior and mid-level data scientists.

Responsibilities

• Evaluation-Driven Development — Strategy & Standards
  • Define and champion the organization's evaluation-driven development framework: standards for selecting modeling approaches (statistical, ML, optimization, simulation, GenAI), evaluation metric design, and validation methodology
  • Establish enterprise guidelines for aligning evaluation metrics to business and process outcomes, ensuring consistency across teams and products
  • Set standards for the use of synthetic data, historical data, and real-world/controlled validation across the model lifecycle, including approval gates before production rollout
  • Own the definition of "measurable improvement" for the portfolio — ensuring every release is backed by a rigorous before/after comparison against business KPIs
• Delivery Leadership
  • Oversee and be accountable for multiple concurrent workstreams delivered through 45-day versioned agile cycles, ensuring the portfolio consistently ships incremental, measurable value
  • Act as the escalation point for delivery risk, technical trade-offs, and cross-team dependencies across release cycles
  • Partner with product and engineering leadership to prioritize the roadmap based on expected business impact vs. delivery cost/risk
• Platform, MLOps & Cost
  • Set architectural and MLOps direction for AI/ML platforms and analytics products on AWS, including model deployment patterns, monitoring, and automated governance
  • Own cost-management and performance-optimization strategy for data and ML workloads at scale, setting budgets and efficiency targets across teams
  • Define enterprise approach to synthetic data generation, offline experimentation, and controlled real-world validation, including tooling selection
• Governance & Compliance
  • Own the framework for balancing model performance, explainability, regulatory compliance, and cost across the portfolio, including escalation criteria for high-risk models
  • Represent the data science function in audits, regulatory reviews, and executive reporting on model governance and business impact
• Leadership
  • Mentor Senior Data Scientists and review their evaluation frameworks, modeling choices, and delivery outcomes
  • Drive adoption of best practices in evaluation-driven development across the organization

Requirements

• Master's or PhD in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Operations Research, or related field (or equivalent demonstrated experience)
• 10+ years of experience delivering data science/ML/analytics solutions, including leadership of technical strategy at a portfolio or platform level
• Proven track record of selecting and justifying modeling approaches across statistical, ML, optimization, simulation, and GenAI paradigms based on business context
• Deep experience defining evaluation metrics tied to business and process KPIs, and demonstrating measurable outcomes from delivered models
• Extensive hands-on and architectural experience with AWS AI/ML platforms and MLOps practices at scale
• Demonstrated ownership of agile, versioned delivery cycles across multiple teams or products
• Strong track record balancing model performance, explainability, compliance, and cost trade-offs, including in regulated environments
• Experience designing synthetic data strategies, offline experimentation frameworks, and controlled real-world validation programs
• Excellent stakeholder management and executive communication skills

Desirable

• Experience presenting model governance and impact metrics to executive or regulatory audiences
• Publications, patents, or public speaking in applied ML/AI evaluation methodology
• Experience building or scaling MLOps platforms from the ground up

What’s in it for you?

• Strong community: Work alongside top professionals in a friendly, open-door environment
• Growth focus: Take on large-scale projects with a global impact and expand your expertise
• Tailored learning: Boost your skills with internal events (meetups, conferences, workshops), Udemy access, language courses, and company-paid certifications
• Endless opportunities: Explore diverse domains through internal mobility, finding the best fit to gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge technologies
• Care: We’ve got you covered with company-paid medical insurance, mental health support, and financial & legal consultations

About Us

At Ciklum, we are always exploring innovations, empowering each other to achieve more, and engineering solutions that matter. With us, you’ll work with cutting-edge technologies, contribute to impactful projects, and be part of a One Team culture that values collaboration and progress.

India is a strategic innovation hub for Ciklum, with growing teams in Chennai and Pune leading advancements in EdgeTech, AR/VR, IoT, and beyond. Join us to collaborate on game-changing solutions and take your career to the next level.

Explore, empower, engineer with Ciklum!