Principal Data & AI Consultant

Endava; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Endava is seeking a Senior Data & AI leader to serve as trusted advisor to CIOs/CTOs and business stakeholders. You will lead Data & AI discovery, translate ambiguous problems into measurable, production-ready solutions, and design architectures across data platforms, analytics, ML, GenAI, apps, APIs, governance, and integrations.

You will guide advanced forecasting, model validation, and governance, while mentoring multinational teams and shaping client proposals.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of applied forecasting and data domain experience.
• Proven experience leading forecasting engagements from discovery to production.
• Strong knowledge of regression, feature design, and model validation.
• Deep understanding of data leakage and point-in-time correctness.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL with reproducible analytics workflows.
• Experience with Snowflake, notebooks, Git, and API integrations.
• Executive communication skills for non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior trusted advisor to CIO, CTO, CDO, CRO, and stakeholders.
• Lead Data & AI discovery and translate business problems into solutions.
• Design end-to-end architectures spanning data platforms, ML, and APIs.
• Lead forecasting and predictive-modeling efforts with rigorous validation.
• Present recommendations to senior/executive audiences and shape proposals.

Skills

Forecasting

Regression analysis

Python

SQL

Data architecture

Executive communication

GenAI/LLMs

Git

APIs

Tools

Snowflake

Notebooks

GitHub

Model Registry

Jupyter Notebooks

Job description

Serve as a senior trusted advisor to CIO, CTO, CDO, CRO, business, product, and technology stakeholders.
Lead Data & AI discovery and translate ambiguous business problems into measurable, production-ready solutions.
Design end-to-end architectures spanning data platforms, analytics, machine learning, GenAI, applications, APIs, governance, and integrations.
Lead and challenge advanced forecasting and predictive-modeling approaches, including regression, sparse and zero-inflated data, feature design, model selection, tuning, and validation.
Define appropriate business and model success measures, including R², WAPE, MAPE, statistical significance, and business-impact KPIs.
Ensure point-in-time correctness, prevent data leakage, and maintain rigorous model-development and validation practices.
Provide hands-on technical leadership using Python, SQL, Snowflake, notebooks, Git, and modern Data/AI platforms.
Shape AI use cases across forecasting, sponsorship sales, lead scoring, next-best-action, revenue intelligence, personalization, subscription growth, and commercial optimization.
Evaluate when classical analytics/ML, GenAI, or agentic AI is the appropriate solution.
Lead architecture and solution-design workshops and present recommendations to senior and executive audiences.
Support proposals, SOWs, RFI/RFP responses, estimates, staffing models, and technical solution shaping.
Lead and mentor multidisciplinary teams across Data Science, Data Engineering, AI Engineering, Software Engineering, and Architecture.
Actively participate in client stand‑ups, backlog refinement, executive readouts, and strategic planning.
Teach and transfer knowledge to client teams; documentation, reproducibility, and handover are expected parts of delivery.
Challenge client requests when the proposed approach does not solve the underlying business problem.

Required

• 7+ years of applied forecasting and data domain experience.
• Proven experience leading at least two comparable forecasting engagements from discovery through production/handover.
• Strong experience with comparable-unit / same-store-style forecasting approaches.
• Expert-level multivariable regression, collinearity analysis, VIF interpretation, model tuning, selection, and holdout validation.
• Strong understanding of sparse and zero-inflated datasets; must understand why nulls cannot be silently treated as zero.
• Strong metric fluency, including R², WAPE, MAPE, and p-values, with the ability to explain metric selection in business language.
• Deep understanding of data leakage and point-in-time feature correctness.
• Strong Python and SQL skills and experience creating reproducible analytical workflows/notebooks.
• Git and pull-request-based software delivery experience.
• Strong Data Architecture and Solution Architecture capability across ingestion, transformation, modeling, security, governance, APIs, cloud, and production operations.
• Strong understanding of ML, GenAI/LLMs, RAG, AI agents, and modern enterprise AI patterns.
• Proven executive communication skills; must be able to present to non-statistical audiences using business outcomes first and methodology second.
• Must be capable of explicitly communicating forecast/model limitations, uncertainty, and risk in plain language.
• Proven client consulting and thought-leadership experience; able to teach methodology, not simply execute it.
• Demonstrated experience leading senior client workshops, technical discovery, architecture discussions, and executive readouts.
• Strong commercial judgment and ability to connect technical decisions to revenue, operational, or customer outcomes.
• Preferred domain experience in sports, media, entertainment, streaming, ticketing, subscriptions, sponsorship, advertising, telecom, or commercial/revenue analytics.

Desired

• Hierarchical/mixed-effects modeling, ADRs, large-scale categorical encoding, MLOps, governance, and responsible AI experience.
• Strong Snowflake experience; Snowflake ML / Model Registry experience.
• 10-12+ years overall Data, Analytics, AI, Architecture, or related technology experience.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Additional Employee Requirements

• Participation in both internal meetings and external meetings via video calls, as necessary.
• Ability to go into corporate or client offices to work onsite, as necessary.
• Prolonged periods of remaining stationary at a desk and working on a computer, as necessary.
• Ability to bend, kneel, crouch, and reach overhead, as necessary.
• Hand‑eye coordination necessary to operate computers and various pieces of office equipment, as necessary.
• Vision abilities including close vision, toleration of fluorescent lighting, and adjusting focus, as necessary.
• For positions that require business travel and/or event attendance, ability to lift 25 lbs, as necessary.
• For positions that require business travel and/or event attendance, a valid driver's license and acceptable driving record are required, as driving is an