Data Science Manager

At Sainsbury’s, data sits at the heart of how we operate, innovate and serve our customers. Our Data & Analytics team is building a technically advanced, commercially focused and impactful capability, powering our Next Level Strategy and helping to create a Sainsbury’s powered by industry leading AI algorithms. We use data, technology and advanced analytics to drive better decisions across the business, from forecasting and optimisation to experimentation, personalisation and machine learning.

With one of the richest retail datasets in the UK and a portfolio spanning Sainsbury’s, Argos, Habitat and Nectar, the opportunity to innovate is huge. Here, you’ll tackle complex challenges at scale, create measurable impact and grow quickly alongside brilliant colleagues. People who thrive with us combine business understanding, technical expertise and curiosity, with a natural instinct for problem-solving. Join us and help shape the future of retail through data and AI.

In Customer Data Science (part of the Data Science Hub), we build the systems behind personalised customer decisioning – from customer segmentations to offer optimisation. We impact millions of customers, bringing them value and earning their loyalty. This team already personalises all of the offers you see in the Nectar app, but now we’re growing in ambition and scale. We aim to personalise everything that matters – offers, online recommendations, digital experiences, communications.

And we aim to achieve this using our incredible data asset, our rich customer understanding, and state of the art machine learning and AI. Our ambition to go further and deeper with personalisation means we need a new team, focused mainly on customers shopping online and with Smart Shop. You’ll initially incubate within an existing Customer Data Science team, until you have the people, strategy, and domain knowledge to operate independently.

This is not a hands‑off role – although a large part of your time will be dedicated to building a high-performing team, you’ll also be expected to lead by example.

• Manage your team – develop their skills, remove their blockers, and protect them from outside noise.
• Provide regular feedback to individuals in your team and align them to stretching goals.
• Create a happy but ambitious team – recognise achievements and manage performance with high but fair expectations.
• Ensure that your team is always delivering against Sainsbury’s strategic objectives, and always be able to answer what value your team has delivered.

• Work with our Product colleagues to ensure we are working on the right things and have the right ways of working.
• Form strong relationships with technical and business teams, championing the value of personalisation in delivering our business goals.
• Iterate on our short-term and long-term strategies.
• Prototype high-value work, demonstrating commitment to generating value and to technical best practices.
• Ensure the value of your team’s work is measured and communicated.
• Align to best practice across modelling, experimentation, deployment, and model lifecycle management.

• Become the recognised data science representative for your domain, bringing new ideas for future approaches to personalisation.
• Understand how our business really works, including by supporting our stores during peak trading periods.
• Actively contribute to our vibrant Data and Analytics community of over 800 colleagues, providing a view on new techniques and approaches that can drive positive change in wider teams.

We’re looking for a highly motivated self-starter – someone who fixes problems and creates value without micromanagement. You need to be able to build and motivate a high-performing team.

• Experience managing a high-performing team.
• Ability to manage with both care and ambition.
• Ability to get the most out of every role and every individual – constantly iterating team structures and approaches to ensure your team is generating more value, more quickly,…