Data Scientist DoE) and Predictive Modeling

Job Summary Are you passionate about data science? Do you have an interest in chemistry? Are you curious to decode product design, perceptions, and behaviours? The Cognitive & Data Science team is looking for you! IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products. This opportunity sits within our Taste business unit where we craft unique, technology-enabled flavor designs that define the identity of food and beverage brands, shape trends in flavor building and fuel market success.

As a key member of our team, you will be responsible for designing efficient experiments (Design of Experiments/DOE), exploring complex high-dimensional datasets, developing and validating predictive machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) models, and delivering actionable insights that drive business value. In this role, you will collaborate closely with cross-functional experts in various fields related to flavor creation to bridge data-driven insights with practical outcomes.

Your expertise will help us unlock new opportunities, improve processes, and inform strategic decisions across the organization. Your KPIs will primarily be the internal adoption of the tools as well as the positive impact on win rate and project execution.

To be successful in this role you are a highly skilled Data Scientist with at least 8 years of experience in the field of data science with strong business acumen and passion to apply data-driven methods to real-world data. You know the scientific fundamentals and are agile with the methods, whilst being pragmatic and result oriented. You strongly believe that insights generated through data science can have a direct impact on product design.

You thrive in multidisciplinary settings and enjoy tackling open-ended research questions and translating complex analytical findings into clear and meaningful narratives for non-technical stakeholders.

• Design and optimize Design of Experiments (DOE), including mixture, factorial, optimal, and space-filling designs, to systematically explore relationships and maximize information from limited resources.
• Design, develop, validate, and deploy explainable predictive ML/AI models to generate actionable insights and business value.
• Monitor emerging trends in data science and ML/AI, conduct competitive assessments, and evaluate new techniques, tools, and technologies to drive continuous improvement and innovation.
• Partner with Operations, Creative, and R&D teams to understand business needs and deliver impactful, data-driven solutions.
• Analyze large and complex datasets to uncover patterns, trends, and insights that support business strategy and priorities.
• Design, develop, and deploy ML/AI models using leading frameworks to address opportunities such as optimization, prediction, and forecasting, while ensuring reproducibility, peer review, and collaborative development through version-controlled code (Git).
• Document and present findings, best practices, and methodologies to foster collaboration and continuous learning, maintaining living documentation in Confluence or equivalent platforms.
• Work with structured and experimental datasets while ensuring data integrity, governance, and compliance, and leverage cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for scalable data solutions.
• Apply domain expertise in flavor chemistry, sensory science, and human science, incorporating first-principles modeling and experimental design to advance data-driven approaches and innovation.

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Mathematics, Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field, with…