Principal Data Scientist - CX Analytics

Unum; Atlanta (GA); Hybrid; USD 109,000 - 224,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Vision benefits

Dental benefits

Short & Long-Term Disability

PTO

Job summary

Unum is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to join the CX Analytics team within our Customer Experience Organization. You will lead applied data science work that goes beyond modeling, mining structured and unstructured data to uncover deeper drivers and opportunities that inform how the business supports its customers.

You will design and run experiments, develop analytical approaches to complex business questions, and translate findings into actionable outputs across BI/reporting, operations,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in quantitative field required; Master’s or PhD preferred.
• 8 years of professional experience or equivalent relevant work experience.
• Experience with data science techniques and analytics.
• Experience integrating large data sources and building analytics pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Proactively partner with the business to provide actionable insights and identify growth opportunities; communicate analysis to obtain buy‑in and drive decision making.
• Integrate large volume of data from different sources to create data assets for analyses.
• Apply validation, aggregation and reconciliation techniques to create modeling-ready data.
• Lead analytics projects and mentor peers across the team.
• Collaborate with BI Analysts and Data Engineers to operationalize findings.

Skills

DevOps & automation

Cloud platforms

SQL & data modeling

Machine learning

Data visualization

Education

Bachelor’s degree in quantitative field

Master’s or PhD preferred

Tools

DB2

SQL Server

Web API

Teradata

Job description

When you join the team at Unum, you become part of an organization committed to helping you thrive.

Here, we work to provide the employee benefits and service solutions that enable employees at our client companies to thrive throughout life’s moments. And this starts with ensuring that every one of our team members enjoys opportunities to succeed both professionally and personally. To enable this, we provide:

• Award-winning culture
• Inclusion and diversity as a priority
• Performance Based Incentive Plans
• Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability
• Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!)
• Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution
• Mental health support
• Career advancement opportunities
• Student loan repayment options
• Tuition reimbursement
• Flexible work environments

*All the benefits listed above are subject to the terms of their individual Plans

And that’s just the beginning...

With 10,000 employees helping more than 39 million people worldwide, every role at Unum is meaningful and impacts the lives of our customers. Whether you’re directly supporting a growing family, or developing online tools to help navigate a difficult loss, customers are counting on the combined talents of our entire team. Help us help others, and join Team Unum today!

General Summary:

We are seeking a Principal Data Scientist to join the CX Analytics team within our Customer Experience Organization. In this role, you will drive applied data science work that goes beyond modeling—mining structured and unstructured data to uncover deeper drivers, patterns, and opportunities that inform how the business supports its customers. You will design and run experiments, develop analytical approaches to complex business questions, and connect findings to outcomes across BI/reporting, operations, and value stream partners. AI and LLMs are central to how our team works, both in how we write code and in how we extract signal from unstructured sources such as raw text, and you will play a key role in advancing these capabilities across the team.

As a hands‑on technical leader, you will guide complex analytical workstreams while mentoring other Data Scientists and helping raise the bar for how the team applies advanced analytics. You will partner closely with BI Analysts and Data Engineers to ensure work is operationalized effectively and grounded in reliable data. The ideal candidate is a strong analytical thinker and collaborator who can work across structured and unstructured data, guide technical approach, and consistently translate complex data into meaningful outputs that support better decision‑making across the organization.

This is a campus-based role. Current remote and field-based Unum employees may apply and will be considered in accordance with company policy.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Proactively partner with the business to provide actionable insights and identify growth opportunities; communicate analysis to obtain buy‑in and drive decision making.
• Integrate large volume of data from different sources (including DB2, SQL Server, Web API and Teradata) to create data assets for ad‑hoc analyses and larger studies.
• Apply validation, aggregation and reconciliation techniques to create rich modeling‑ready data framework.
• Build and maintain best practices for team’s data science strategy; as well as staying informed of best practices across industries and striving for innovation and efficiency.
• Prioritize and lead analytics projects
• Apply domain expertise to modeling process using state‑of‑the‑art techniques to construct predictive models to explain and understand observed events, forecast expected behavior, or identify risk through scoring or clustering.
• Efficiently interpret results and communicate findings and potential value to business partners to influence strategic decision making.
• Lead the integration of solutions within existing business processes using automation techniques.
• Understand theory and application of current and emerging statistical methods and tools.
• Coaches, mentors and develops peers and/or team members.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Job Specifications

• Bachelor’s degree in quantitative field is required, Master’s or PhD is preferred
• 8 years of professional experience or equivalent relevant work experience preferred
• Core Data Science Capabilities: Deep expertise in each of the following categories of skillsets is preferred
• Programming & Process automation: Experience with using file I/O, database integrations, and APIs to build automated analytics pipelines. Demonstrated experience using DevOps libraries to research and design processes including automation, data mining, web scraping, or object‑oriented software is preferred. Experience engineering solutions using cloud platforms and exposure to scaling solutions in the cloud. Understands partnership with IT to deploy solutions. Demonstrated expertise at bringing analytics to scale
• Data Visualization: Demonstrates the ability to critically evaluate visualization suitability to specific scenarios.
• Statistics & Statistical Modeling: Expertise on statistical inference and regression. Expertise in machine learning, feature selection, and feature extraction. Demonstrated experience in leading multiple high‑impact machine learning and analysis projects end‑to‑end
• Data Extraction, Transformation, and Loading skillsets preferred: Expertise in writing complex SQL queries that join multiple tables/databases. Demonstrated through independent research of data sources, troubleshooting complex SQL queries, and leading partnerships with external data providers. Demonstrates ability to create logical data models by combining data from multiple sources including internal and external data.
• Core business capabilities : Strong communication skills, expertise in financial services, strong experience leading engagements, and working with executive leadership. Strong project management skills; effectively and independently prioritizes and manages own projects simultaneously and provides direction on projects and prioritization to less experienced team members.
• Leadership Capabilities : Leader within their field, both internally and externally. Naturally effective coach and mentor, actively engages peers and team members, especially within areas of expertise. Viewed as a leader in change management. Maintains depth of technical understanding of third party/cloud solutions.
• This position may have key leadership responsibilities, including:
• People Management: Actively participates in determining staffing needs of the team, including hiring and development. Leads assigned team in the completion of requested activities and projects.
• Analytics strategic and program management for their organization: Coaches, mentors, and helps build team. Proactively identifies and researches new approaches and skills needed for performing data science and advanced analytics.
• Preferred characteristics : Entrepreneurial self‑starter. A thorough, results‑oriented problem‑solver, and a lifelong learner with voracious curiosity. Deep expertise in their organization. Demonstrates ability to conduct independent research and development of techniques that may be shared internally and externally.

#LI-AD1

#LI-MULTI
#LI-HYBRID

~IN1

Unum and Colonial Life are part of Unum Group, a Fortune 500 company and leading provider of employee benefits to companies worldwide. Headquartered in Chattanooga, TN, with international offices in Ireland, Poland and the UK, Unum also has significant operations in Portland, ME, and Baton Rouge, LA - plus over 35 US field offices. Colonial Life is headquartered in Columbia, SC, with over 40 field offices nationwide.

Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person’s race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status.

The base salary range for applicants for this position is listed below. Unless actual salary is indicated above in the job description, actual pay will be based on skill, geographical location and experience.

$109,100.00-$224,000.00

Additionally, Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long‑term disability), performance‑based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not. All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans.

Company:

Unum