Manager, Data Science

Vanguard; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Visa sponsorship

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Vanguard seeks an experienced Data Scientist/AI leader to spearhead a team delivering traditional and agentic AI/ML capabilities for enterprise conversational AI across voice, chat, and emerging agentic experiences. You will set priorities, provide technical direction, coach talent, and ensure high-quality execution.

You will drive the full AI lifecycle from problem formulation and experimentation to deployment readiness, production measurement, and continuous optimization, while leading the

Qualifications

• 8+ years of data science or applied AI experience with leadership exposure.
• Strong foundation in ML, including supervised/unsupervised learning, feature engineering, modeling, evaluation, experimentation, and measurement.
• Expertise in NLP and Generative AI with understanding of transformer architectures, embeddings, LLMs, prompting, retrieval-augmented generation, and modern language-model development patterns.
• Hands-on experience designing and evaluating agentic AI systems, including orchestration/routing, knowledge retrieval, multi-turn dialogue, and agent evaluation.
• Strong Python and data-analysis skills; familiar with large datasets and ML libraries.
• Experience with AI/ML evaluation and observability, including evaluation datasets, metrics, benchmarks, automated evaluations, production monitoring, failure analysis, and mapping model behavior to outcomes.
• Ability to translate ambiguous problems into hypotheses and measurable success criteria; balance technical depth with business context.
• Proven ability to lead and develop data scientists, set standards, and foster accountability, learning, and experimentation.
• Strong communication skills to explain complex AI concepts to Product, Engineering, Analytics, Risk, and senior stakeholders.
• Undergraduate degree in a quantitative field; advanced degree preferred.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of data scientists and deliver traditional and agentic AI/ML capabilities for enterprise conversational AI across voice and chat.
• Drive the full AI lifecycle from problem formulation through deployment, monitoring, and optimization.
• Lead development and optimization of agentic and traditional AI solutions, including NLP, LLM-based applications, and knowledge retrieval.
• Advance evaluation and production intelligence for conversational AI with rigorous methods for accuracy, reliability, and outcomes.
• Develop scalable evaluation approaches to identify failure modes, benchmark solutions, and support evidence-based release decisions.
• Translate business problems into measurable DS problems and scalable AI solutions with stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Architecture, UX, Analytics, and Risk.
• Establish technical standards and best practices for model development, evaluation, observability, explainability, and responsible AI use.
• Drive continuous improvement of conversational and agentic systems by leveraging evaluation signals for iterations and measurable outcomes.
• Stay current with AI advances and evaluate emerging methods, models, and architectures.

Skills

Data Science

Machine Learning

NLP

Generative AI

Agentic AI

Python

Experimentation

Stakeholder management

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Statistics or related quantitative field

Job description

Core Responsibilities

• Manage a team of data scientists to deliver both traditional and agentic AI/ML capabilities for enterprise conversational AI across voice, chat, and emerging agentic experiences; establish priorities, provide technical direction, coach talent, and ensure high-quality execution.
• Drive Data Science across the full AI lifecycle, from problem formulation, research and experimentation through solution design, development, evaluation, deployment readiness, production measurement, and continuous optimization.
• Lead development and optimization of traditional and agentic AI/ML solutions, including supervised and unsupervised learning, NLP, Generative AI, LLM-based applications, agentic systems, classification models, and knowledge/retrieval-based solutions.
• Advance evaluation and production intelligence for conversational AI, establishing rigorous methods to assess functional accuracy, user-need fulfillment, reliability, and other system-level behaviors.
• Develop scalable evaluation approaches that enable teams to identify failure modes, compare solutions, establish benchmarks, and make evidence-based release decisions.
• Apply strong analytical and statistical thinking to uncover patterns in large and complex datasets, diagnose model and system behavior, perform root-cause analysis, design experiments, quantify uncertainty, and translate findings into actionable product and engineering recommendations.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Architecture, UX, Analytics, Risk and other stakeholders as an embedded technical leader, translating ambiguous business and client problems into measurable Data Science problems and scalable AI solutions
• Establish technical standards and best practices for model development, experimentation, evaluation, validation, observability, explainability, documentation, and responsible use of AI.
• Drive continuous improvement of conversational and agentic systems by converting evaluation and production signals into hypotheses, experiments, model/prompt/system improvements, and measurable outcomes.
• Communicate complex AI/ML concepts, findings, risks, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders and influence decisions across cross-functional teams.
• Stay current with advances in AI and Data Science and evaluate emerging methods, models, frameworks, and architectures.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant Data Science, Machine Learning, or applied AI experience, with demonstrated experience leading complex technical work; prior people leadership or technical team leadership strongly preferred.
• Strong practical foundation in machine learning, including supervised and unsupervised learning, feature engineering, model development, validation, experimentation, and performance measurement.
• Demonstrated expertise in Natural Language Processing and Generative AI, with a strong understanding of transformer architectures, embeddings, LLMs, prompting, retrieval-augmented generation, and modern language-model development patterns.
• Hands-on experience designing, building, evaluating, or optimizing agentic AI systems, including areas such as orchestration/routing, tool use, knowledge retrieval, multi-turn conversational behavior, and agent evaluation.
• Strong Python and data-analysis skills, with experience working with large datasets and using modern ML/Data Science libraries and development environments.
• Experience with AI/ML evaluation and observability, including developing evaluation datasets, metrics, benchmarks, automated evaluations, production monitoring, failure analysis, and methods for connecting model/system behavior to client or business outcomes.
• Ability to move comfortably between technical depth and business context, translating loosely defined problems into hypotheses, analytical approaches, measurable success criteria, and actionable recommendations.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop Data Scientists, provide thoughtful technical review, establish engineering and modeling standards, manage competing priorities, and create an environment of accountability, learning, and experimentation.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to explain complex AI concepts and influence Product, Engineering, Architecture, Analytics, Risk, and senior business stakeholders.
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Economics, Analytics, or a related quantitative discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience; advanced degree preferred.

Special Factors

Sponsorship

Vanguard is offering visa sponsorship for this position.

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission—we're on a mission.

To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.