Director Of Data Science – Credit Risk

COMPETITIVE BASE SALARY + BONUS + EQUITY

Harnham is partnering with a high-growth fintech business focused on transforming access to consumer credit through advanced analytics, machine learning and data-driven decisioning.

With an established lending platform and continued investment in its Data Science function, the business is looking for an experienced Director of Data Science to lead its credit acquisition modeling capabilities and help shape the next phase of growth.

This is an opportunity to join a business where Data Science plays a central role in commercial strategy, with direct influence over lending decisions, customer acquisition and portfolio profitability.

As Director of Data Science, you will lead a team of Data Scientists responsible for developing, deploying and optimizing machine learning models supporting credit acquisition and underwriting decisions.

This is a leadership-focused position, combining people management, technical oversight and strategic ownership. You will not be expected to write code daily, but you must have the technical depth to review code, challenge modeling approaches and guide your team through complex analytical problems.

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead, mentor and develop a team of Data Scientists, driving technical excellence and professional development.
• Own the strategic direction of credit acquisition modeling, balancing approval rates, credit losses and portfolio profitability.
• Oversee the development, deployment and ongoing monitoring of predictive models used in lending decisions.
• Provide technical oversight through Python code reviews, model evaluation and methodological guidance.
• Partner with senior stakeholders across Credit Risk, Product and Engineering to translate business objectives into modeling strategies.
• Establish best practices around model performance, experimentation, governance and production deployment.
• Identify opportunities to improve credit decisioning through advanced analytics and machine learning.

The successful candidate will bring a combination of strong people leadership, technical credibility and commercial understanding of credit risk.

• Proven experience managing and developing teams of Data Scientists.
• Strong background in credit risk modeling, ideally within consumer lending, credit cards or fintech.
• Experience developing or overseeing credit acquisition, underwriting or predictive risk models.
• Strong technical understanding of Python and machine learning frameworks such as scikit-learn, XGBoost or LightGBM.
• Ability to review code, evaluate modeling methodologies and provide meaningful technical direction without being a daily hands-on contributor.
• Experience taking machine learning models through development, validation and production deployment.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to communicate complex analytical concepts to senior business leaders.
• Commercial understanding of credit performance, approval strategies, loss rates and portfolio optimization.

• Competitive base salary, performance bonus and equity.
• Fully remote opportunity within the United States.
• Opportunity to lead an established Data Science team.
• Significant ownership of credit acquisition modeling strategy.
• Direct exposure to senior leadership and commercially impactful decision-making.
• Opportunity to influence the technical direction of a growing fintech business.