Role Summary
The Head of Data Science is a high-impact leadership position responsible for building and leading a world‑class “decision engine” team. As a key architect of our “AI‑powered future,” you will accelerate the transformation of The Economist’s Data Science team from a service provider into a “trusted adviser” that delivers commercially transformative advice and world‑class personalisation capabilities. You will be responsible for setting and raising the technical and operational standards of the team, fostering a culture of technical excellence and innovation.
Role Responsibilities
- Lead, mentor and develop a high‑performance team of approximately six Data Scientists, ensuring technical growth and a “T‑shaped” culture.
- Own the technical architecture and MLOps lifecycle for data science, collaborating with Data Engineering and AI Platform teams to drive excellence in model build, deployment, testing and monitoring using Amazon SageMaker (and occasionally Snowflake).
- Lead the development of advanced causal models (e.g., Media Mix Modelling, retention drivers, simulation models) to provide prescriptive “what next” insights.
- Oversee the Personalisation Analysts in collaboration with Marketing and Product teams to identify and execute opportunities using CDP and activation platforms (Salesforce, Airship, Blueconic, Amplitude).
- Leverage NLP and transformer architectures to enhance content tagging and use Generative AI to improve internal AIML workflows, including model testing and documentation.
- Act as a senior technical consultant to executive fora, translating complex findings into actionable narratives.
- Drive adoption of AI & ML techniques across the wider Data, Research & Insight team and broader business.
Must‑Have Experience & Expertise
- Proven leadership in building high‑performance data‑science teams and raising technical standards.
- Track record of delivering technical innovations that yield quantifiable commercial benefits.
- Strong curiosity and operational mindset, consistently applying knowledge to drive commercial value.
- Deep expertise in decision science, causal inference, forecasting and simulation techniques for business strategy.
- Proven delivery of performant AI & ML models that enhance subscriber experience and commercial performance through content recommendations, personalised pricing and journey orchestration.
- Strong MLOps experience, model architecture and scaling on AWS/SageMaker.
- Hands‑on experience with NLP, neural networks, transformers, and Generative AI in the AIML lifecycle.
- Commercial agency, “owner’s mindset” and proactive problem‑solving.
Desirable Experience & Expertise
- Experience in a premium news or subscription‑based environment, understanding subscription‑specific engagement challenges.
- Familiarity with CDP activation (e.g., Salesforce, Airship, Blueconic) and product analytics tools (e.g., Amplitude).
Benefits
Our benefits package supports wellbeing, growth and work‑life balance. It includes a highly competitive pension or 401(k) plan, private health insurance, 24/7 access to counselling and wellbeing resources, generous annual and parental leave, dedicated days off for volunteering and moving, and the option to work from any location you are legally entitled to work in for up to 25 days per year. You will also receive free access to all Economist content, including an online subscription, apps, podcasts and more.
Working Arrangements
The role operates on a hybrid pattern with a minimum of three days in the office per week.
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