About Careertakes

👉 Important disclosure: Careertakes is a third-party recruiting platform supporting this hiring process. If selected, you will be employed directly by our client, IT System Data Services.

Applicants for this role may also receive access to additional matched opportunities through the Careertakes platform.

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Role Overview

Careertakes is assisting a Confidential Client in the IT System Data Services industry to hire a Lead Data Scientist — Collections & Operations (fully remote, U.S.). This is a senior individual‑contributor role responsible for technical leadership of collections- and operations-focused machine learning initiatives: building production-ready models, establishing modeling and experimentation standards, and growing internal capabilities while reducing reliance on external consultancies.

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Key Responsibilities

• Drive execution of the collections data science roadmap and set technical direction for modeling initiatives.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for collections, repayment, and engagement modeling.
• Design, develop, deploy, and monitor production ML models that predict customer responses, engagement, and repayment behavior.
• Define data-driven strategies for when and how customers are contacted across channels.
• Establish scalable modeling, experimentation, and MLOps frameworks.
• Improve software engineering best practices across the data science lifecycle (testing, code review, reproducibility).
• Provide technical guidance to internal data scientists, external consultants, and specialist contractors.
• Build sustainable internal capabilities to reduce dependence on third-party consultancies.
• Ensure machine learning systems in production are reliable, reproducible, monitored, and well-documented.

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Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of commercial data science experience or an equivalent advanced academic background.
• Proven experience deploying and monitoring machine learning models in production.
• Strong software engineering practices (unit/integration testing, code reviews, CI/CD, reproducibility).
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically complex projects and influence senior stakeholders.
• Able to operate independently as the most senior individual contributor on a workstream.
• Experience in fintech, consumer lending, risk, operations, marketing science, or other large-scale predictive-modeling environments.

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Preferred Qualifications & Tools

• Prior collections experience is a plus.
• Strong interest and/or experience with MLOps and production ML tooling.
• Familiarity with: Python, scikit-learn, LightGBM, Airflow, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform, MLflow, BentoML, feature stores, DVC or similar versioning tools.

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Location & Work Arrangement

• Fully remote within the United States.
• Senior individual contributor role with technical leadership responsibilities (no direct people management required).

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Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary up to $200,000.
• Bonus and equity opportunities.
• Full benefits package (medical, dental, vision, 401(k), etc.).

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Equal Opportunity & Hiring Transparency

Careertakes and our client are Equal Opportunity Employers committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind. To support a fair and efficient hiring process, AI tools may be used to assist with application review or resume screening. These tools do not replace human decision-making. Final hiring decisions are made by people.

If you have questions about how your data is used, please contact us directly.