Principal Data Scientist

Persistent Systems; Pune District; Hybrid; INR 6,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and benefits

Culture focused on talent development

Opportunity to work with cutting-edge技

Education support and certifications

Team collaboration and flexible hours

Job summary

Persistent Systems is seeking a Principal Data Scientist in Pune to lead AI strategy and build a world-class data science organization. The role focuses on generative AI, LLMs, and multimodal workflows, shaping a multi-year roadmap and best practices for production-grade AI platforms.

You will partner with product, security, and legal teams to deliver scalable AI solutions while driving innovation, governance, and measurable business impact.

Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in CS/DS/ML or equivalent industry expertise.
• 8+ years building and shipping ML systems and leading AI teams.
• Deep knowledge of generative AI, foundation models, and RL concepts.
• Experience designing enterprise ML/GenAI platforms (MLOps/LLMOps).
• Strong communication and stakeholder management.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve AI/ML strategy and multi-year roadmap across genAI and multimodal systems.
• Lead and grow a high-performing data science organization with mentoring and standards.
• Set priorities for model development, fine-tuning, RAG, evaluation, and architectures.
• Define target-state AI platforms architecture with security and governance.
• Partner with product/engineering/legal to translate problems into scalable AI solutions.
• Establish best practices for experimentation, risk management, and production monitoring.
• Represent the organization in client forums and industry forums; contribute to thought leadership.

Job description

About Persistent

We are an AI-led, platform-driven Digital Engineering and Enterprise Modernization partner, combining deep technical expertise and industry experience to help our clients anticipate what’s next. Our offerings and proven solutions create a unique competitive advantage for our clients by giving them the power to see beyond and rise above. We work with many industry-leading organizations across the world, including 20 Fortune 50 companies and 4 of the 5 top banks in both the US and India, and numerous innovators across the healthcare ecosystem. Our disruptor’s mindset, commitment to client success, and agility to thrive in the dynamic environment have enabled us to sustain our growth momentum. Persistent has been recognized across top industry platforms for innovation, leadership, and inclusion. We reported $1,654.4M FY26 revenue with 17.4% Y-o-Y growth. We have delivered 24 sequential quarters of growth with $436.0M in Q4 FY26 revenue, up 3.2% Q-o-Q and 16.2% Y-o-Y growth. Our 27,500+ global team members, located in 18 countries, have been instrumental in helping the market leaders transform their industries. We have been recognized as the Fastest Growing IT Services Brand Globally in the 2026 Brand Finance IT Services 25 Report. We named a Leader in the Everest Group Private Equity (PE) Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2026 and Software Product Engineering PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2026.

About Position

• Role: Principal Data Scientist
• Location: Pune
• Experience: 15+ years
• Job Type: Full Time Employment

What You'll Do

• Own and evolve the organization’s AI/ML strategy and multi-year roadmap, identifying high-impact opportunities across generative AI, large language models, multimodal systems, and autonomous/agentic workflows
• Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing data science organization (hiring, mentoring, performance development), setting technical standards and career paths for senior ICs and managers
• Set research and engineering priorities across model development, fine-tuning (SFT/RLHF/RLAIF), retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation, and agent architectures—balancing innovation, risk, and time-to-value
• Define target-state architecture for AI platforms (MLOps/LLMOps, feature store, model registry, observability), ensuring security, privacy, compliance, and responsible AI practices
• Partner with product, engineering, legal, security, and business leaders to translate ambiguous problems into scalable AI solutions with clear success metrics and adoption plans
• Establish best practices for experimentation, model risk management, evaluation benchmarks, and production monitoring (quality, latency, cost, drift), enabling reliable and repeatable delivery
• Represent the organization with executive presence in client forums, industry conferences, and academic partnerships; contribute to thought leadership, patents, and publications where relevant

Expertise You'll Bring

• Master’s / PhD or BTech in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field (or equivalent, demonstrable industry expertise)
• 8+ years building and shipping ML systems, with significant experience leading large, cross-functional AI teams and influencing product/engineering roadmaps
• Deep expertise in generative AI and foundation models, including prompt engineering, RAG, fine-tuning, evaluation, and agentic architectures; strong grasp of reinforcement learning concepts and trade-offs
• Proven experience designing and operating enterprise ML/GenAI platforms (MLOps/LLMOps), scaling training/inference, optimizing cost and latency, and ensuring reliability and observability in production
• Strong record of innovation (publications/patents/open-source contributions) and/or demonstrable industry impact through successful delivery of AI products at scale
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills—able to align executives and delivery teams, explain complex topics clearly, and drive decisions through crisp narratives and data

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Culture focused on talent development with quarterly growth opportunities and company-sponsored higher education and certifications
• Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies
• Employee engagement initiatives such as project parties, flexible work hours, and Long Service awards
• Annual health check-upsInsurance coverage: group term life, personal accident, and Mediclaim hospitalization for self, spouse, two children, and parents

Values‑Driven, People-Centric & Inclusive Work Environment

• We support hybrid work and flexible hours to fit diverse lifestyles.
• Our office is accessibility‑friendly, with ergonomic setups and assistive technologies to support employees with physical disabilities.
• If you are a person with disabilities and have specific requirements, please inform us during the application process or at any time during your employment

“Persistent is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind.”

Let’s unleash your full potential at Persistent - persistent.com/careers

GenAI Agents,Data Science,Multi-Agent Systems in Generative Context