Lead Data Scientist - Customer Development

About Faculty

At Faculty, we transform organisational performance through safe, impactful and human-centric AI.

With more than a decade of experience, we provide over 350 global customers with software, bespoke AI consultancy, and Fellows from our award winning Fellowship programme.

Our expert team brings together leaders from across government, academia and global tech giants to solve the biggest challenges in applied AI.

Should you join us, you’ll have the chance to work with, and learn from, some of the brilliant minds who are bringing Frontier AI to the frontlines of the world.

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity to work on Faculty’s product Frontier, working as a Lead Data Scientist in our Customer Development team. You’ll have a crucial opportunity to shape the technical vision for how we deliver our flagship Frontier product to customers and guide the senior and junior data scientists on your team.

You will oversee project teams that configure Frontier for our customers by designing and building bespoke computational twins – our AI-powered digital twins. Maintaining ownership of the data science approach, you will own the technical vision for these complex deployments, partner directly with clients to shape strategy, and play a vital part in mentoring the next generation of data science talent at Faculty.

What you'll be doing

Project Leadership:

• Guide the technical delivery of Frontier deployments for clients, from initial discovery through to the build and productionisation of computational twins.

• Own the end-to-end data science approach, designing and implementing the optimal techniques – from EDA and classic machine learning to deep learning – to create high-performing computational twins within the Frontier platform.

• Partner with our commercial team and clients to build strong, lasting relationships, acting as a trusted technical advisor on how AI & Frontier can solve their most complex problems.

• Articulate intricate technical concepts, model design choices, and strategic decisions clearly and effectively to diverse audiences, from client-side engineers to C-suite executives.

Team Mentorship:

• Formally manage and mentor a number of data scientists, taking direct responsibility for their career progression and professional growth.

• Provide targeted technical support and learning opportunities for the data scientists on your project teams, ensuring they are developing their skills in applied data science and on the Frontier platform.

• Contribute to sustaining our culture by creating an atmosphere of collaboration and setting a high standard for performance and technical excellence within the team.

Technical Leadership:

• Establish a distinct and differentiated data science vision for building computational twins, driving best practices and innovative approaches for configuring the Frontier product.

• Partner with our commercial and product teams to ensure potential projects are appropriately scoped and resourced, balancing client delivery, colleague wellbeing, and commercial imperatives.

• Keep abreast of the latest technical and technology advancements in AI, share these with others in the organisation, and identify how they can be incorporated into the Frontier product and our delivery workflows.

Who we're looking for

• You have deep technical expertise in machine learning and a command of diverse methodologies, with a solid grasp of data science and statistical techniques (e.g., supervised/unsupervised machine learning, model cross-validation, Bayesian inference, time-series analysis).

• Strong Python programming skills and an excellent proficiency of the basic libraries for data science (e.g., NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-Learn) and familiarity with a deep-learning framework (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch).

• You possess proven experience leading data science projects and making key decisions on technical direction, model selection, and architecture.

• You are an exceptional communicator, capable of building rapport with clients, translating complex business problems into a mathematical framework, and presenting technical solutions persuasively to senior audiences.

• You have a strategic, product-oriented mindset, with an ability to understand the core needs of users and connect them to the value delivered by a technical product like Frontier.

• You are passionate about developing people and have experience formally managing or mentoring other technical professionals.

• Commercial experience is essential, particularly if it involved client-facing work, project management, or consulting. You are motivated to work alongside our clients to ensure the successful delivery of innovative work to strict timelines.

What we can offer you:

The Faculty team is diverse and distinctive, and we all come from different personal, professional and organisational backgrounds. We all have one thing in common: we are driven by a deep intellectual curiosity that powers us forward each day.

Faculty is the professional challenge of a lifetime. You’ll be surrounded by an impressive group of brilliant minds working to achieve our collective goals.

Our consultants, product developers, business development specialists, operations professionals and more all bring something unique to Faculty, and you’ll learn something new from everyone you meet.