Head of Data Science, Credit Acquisition (Remote)

Dataroles; Northern (KY); Remote; USD 184,000 - 219,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Wellness stipend

Health/dental/vision insurance

Disability coverage

Paid parental leave

Flexible spending account

Life insurance

Remote-first work environment

Job summary

Mission Lane is seeking a Director of Data Science to own the strategy and technical leadership behind credit acquisition models, reporting to the Sr. Director, Data Science.

You will lead the strategy behind decisions on credit card applications, ensuring accuracy and fairness as conditions change, while mentoring a team of data scientists and partnering with stakeholders across Risk, Portfolio, and Engineering.

Qualifications

• PhD or BS/MS in a quantitative field with required years of experience.
• Experience deploying supervised learning models in production for high-impact applications.
• Experience hiring, coaching, and developing data scientists as a manager.
• Applied data science to credit risk/underwriting or similar long-horizon regulated problems.
• Fluent in Python data stack, writing reproducible code for pipelines and model training.
• Willing to travel ~4–6 times per year for in-person collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Own Mission Lane's credit acquisition modeling strategy, balancing approval rates, portfolio performance, and fair lending.
• Provide technical leadership for the data science team with emphasis on model design, code quality, and production rigor.
• Maintain model risk and monitoring practices to ensure explainable, compliant, and accurate models as underwriting conditions change.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Credit Risk, Portfolio, Data Engineering, and leadership to align modeling with risk appetite.
• Expand the team and scope as acquisitions-adjacent growth initiatives are integrated.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Mentoring data scientists

Credit risk modeling

Business problem focus

Education

PhD in quantitative field or BS/MS with extensive experience

Tools

Python data stack

LightGBM

DVC

Kubernetes

Airflow

Google Cloud

Chalk

Job description

Mission Lane is seeking a Director of Data Science to own the strategy and technical leadership behind credit acquisition models, reporting to the Sr. Director, Data Science.

You will lead the strategy behind decisions on credit card applications, ensuring accuracy and fairness as conditions change, while mentoring a team of data scientists and partnering with stakeholders across Risk, Portfolio, and Engineering.